Principles of communication
Communication is the process of generating meaning by receiving and sending verbal and nonverbal
symbols and signs that are influenced by multiple contexts.
Chapter 1: the communication tradition
Studying rhetoric in ancient Greece
Rhetoric: the study of communication
Rhetorics: teachers of communications
Plato: a Greek philosopher
Aristotle was his student and attended his academy
Three pillars of persuasion
Ethos: credibility, personal character
Pathos: emotions, the ability to arouse emotions
Logos: reasoning, the wording and logic of the message
The classical period (500 B.C. – 400 C.E.)
Corax and Tisias: two Sicilian Greek rhetoricians
Sophists: professional speech teachers who advertised their services by posting notices in public
places where they could find an audience
Cicero: a prominent roman politician
- Helped to create the five canons of rhetoric
The five canons of rhetoric (table 1.2)
1) Invention: research as much as you can
2) Arrangement: arrange ideas for maximum impact
3) Style: select and arrange wording carefully
4) Memory: remember what you want to say
5) Delivery: nonverbal -> the way you deliver the content
Quintilian: the last great classical theorist
- Stressed the ethical dimension of communication when he defined rhetoric as the study of
“the good man speaking well”.
Medieval (400-1400) and renaissance (1400-1600) communication
Augustine: major Christian theorist -> argued that it would be foolish for truth to take its stand
unarmed against falsehood.
- Believed people communicate through signs: something that causes something else to come
into the mind as a consequence of itself.
,Natural signs: are created by God (smoke, which causes to one think of fire)
Conventional signs: are arbitrarily created by humans (the spoken or written word)
The modern period (1600-1900)
Four approaches in the modern period
1) Classical approach: recover the insights of the great classical rhetoricians, adapting them to
modern times
2) Psychological/epistemological approach: investigating the relationship of communication and
thought, trying to understand in a scientific way how people influence each other through
speech
3) Belletristic approach: focusses on writing and speaking as art forms
4) Elocutionary approach: designed elaborate systems of instruction to improve speakers (non)
verbal presentation
Francis Bacon (1561-1626): identified four ‘idols’ or distortions that get in the way of clear thinking
Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and John Locke (1632-1704): mistrusted normal uses of rhetoric -> truth
can only be obtained through discourse that is grounded in an understanding of human rationality
George Campbell (1719-1796): combined these ideas of modern thinkers with the teachings of
classical rhetoricians.
Contemporary Period: Communication today
Two approaches to the study of communication:
- Scientific method: a belief in controlled laboratory experimentation and careful, objective
measurement.
- The rhetorical tradition: using the historical and critical methods of the humanities in their
studies, which are symbolic activity shapes public response to political and ethical issues ->
rhetoric remains a human discipline
Chapter 2: definitions, models and perspectives
A product or phenomenon can have different kinds of definitions that can be correct (example:
phone can be a product to communicate, a design of a product, or maintaining relationships)
Definition: clarifies concepts by indicating their boundaries
Objective processes of discovery: a single correct definition exists for everything
Subjective process of construction: assume that most of the things we try to define are human
constructions
Breadth: how broad or narrow we want our communication to be
Intentionality: does the sender always consciously have to communicate in order to participate in
communication?
, Sender-based: the person sending out information, either intentional or not, is the one
communicating
Receiver-based: the person observing or hearing information is the one communicator
Spoken symbolic interaction: the way people create common meaning by using symbols (words) and
share that meaning with each other
Nonverbal interaction: unspoken and often unintentional behavior. Can be accompanied by verbal
communication to create a fully interdependent meaning.
Communication sub-fields:
- Interpersonal communication: how people use the one-to-one interaction to build
relationships
- Small group communication: how small collections of people can work together to discuss
and solve a problem
- Public communication: how public speakers sway audiences
- Intercultural communication: how people from different cultures, values, understand and
accept each other
- Organizational communication: how communication plays out in business and industry
settings
- Mass communication: how messages are broadcast to large mass audiences
(newspaper/tv/radio)
Mediated interaction: messaging (E-mail, social media, whatsapp) via indirect sources where
individuals can work together as well as co-group communication
Theory: how I think things work. Proposition thus may not always be true (can be proven by testing)
-> commonly remain unproven and thus does not truly represent reality
Model: abstract representation of a process, description, of its structure or function. Models are
representations and cannot capture a process in its entirety.
- Can be useful to help us understand how a process works.
Why: trying to make sense on processes
How: explanatory (explain the process), predictive (to test a process), control
function (how to modify/control a process)
What: make assumptions, different ways to model a process, models are
incomplete by definition
Models can serve:
- Explanatory functions: dividing a process into constituent parts and showing us how the parts
are connected
- Predictive functions: allow “if….then” questions (traffic simulations)
- Control functions: show how to control a process
Communication is the process of generating meaning by receiving and sending verbal and nonverbal
symbols and signs that are influenced by multiple contexts.
Chapter 1: the communication tradition
Studying rhetoric in ancient Greece
Rhetoric: the study of communication
Rhetorics: teachers of communications
Plato: a Greek philosopher
Aristotle was his student and attended his academy
Three pillars of persuasion
Ethos: credibility, personal character
Pathos: emotions, the ability to arouse emotions
Logos: reasoning, the wording and logic of the message
The classical period (500 B.C. – 400 C.E.)
Corax and Tisias: two Sicilian Greek rhetoricians
Sophists: professional speech teachers who advertised their services by posting notices in public
places where they could find an audience
Cicero: a prominent roman politician
- Helped to create the five canons of rhetoric
The five canons of rhetoric (table 1.2)
1) Invention: research as much as you can
2) Arrangement: arrange ideas for maximum impact
3) Style: select and arrange wording carefully
4) Memory: remember what you want to say
5) Delivery: nonverbal -> the way you deliver the content
Quintilian: the last great classical theorist
- Stressed the ethical dimension of communication when he defined rhetoric as the study of
“the good man speaking well”.
Medieval (400-1400) and renaissance (1400-1600) communication
Augustine: major Christian theorist -> argued that it would be foolish for truth to take its stand
unarmed against falsehood.
- Believed people communicate through signs: something that causes something else to come
into the mind as a consequence of itself.
,Natural signs: are created by God (smoke, which causes to one think of fire)
Conventional signs: are arbitrarily created by humans (the spoken or written word)
The modern period (1600-1900)
Four approaches in the modern period
1) Classical approach: recover the insights of the great classical rhetoricians, adapting them to
modern times
2) Psychological/epistemological approach: investigating the relationship of communication and
thought, trying to understand in a scientific way how people influence each other through
speech
3) Belletristic approach: focusses on writing and speaking as art forms
4) Elocutionary approach: designed elaborate systems of instruction to improve speakers (non)
verbal presentation
Francis Bacon (1561-1626): identified four ‘idols’ or distortions that get in the way of clear thinking
Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and John Locke (1632-1704): mistrusted normal uses of rhetoric -> truth
can only be obtained through discourse that is grounded in an understanding of human rationality
George Campbell (1719-1796): combined these ideas of modern thinkers with the teachings of
classical rhetoricians.
Contemporary Period: Communication today
Two approaches to the study of communication:
- Scientific method: a belief in controlled laboratory experimentation and careful, objective
measurement.
- The rhetorical tradition: using the historical and critical methods of the humanities in their
studies, which are symbolic activity shapes public response to political and ethical issues ->
rhetoric remains a human discipline
Chapter 2: definitions, models and perspectives
A product or phenomenon can have different kinds of definitions that can be correct (example:
phone can be a product to communicate, a design of a product, or maintaining relationships)
Definition: clarifies concepts by indicating their boundaries
Objective processes of discovery: a single correct definition exists for everything
Subjective process of construction: assume that most of the things we try to define are human
constructions
Breadth: how broad or narrow we want our communication to be
Intentionality: does the sender always consciously have to communicate in order to participate in
communication?
, Sender-based: the person sending out information, either intentional or not, is the one
communicating
Receiver-based: the person observing or hearing information is the one communicator
Spoken symbolic interaction: the way people create common meaning by using symbols (words) and
share that meaning with each other
Nonverbal interaction: unspoken and often unintentional behavior. Can be accompanied by verbal
communication to create a fully interdependent meaning.
Communication sub-fields:
- Interpersonal communication: how people use the one-to-one interaction to build
relationships
- Small group communication: how small collections of people can work together to discuss
and solve a problem
- Public communication: how public speakers sway audiences
- Intercultural communication: how people from different cultures, values, understand and
accept each other
- Organizational communication: how communication plays out in business and industry
settings
- Mass communication: how messages are broadcast to large mass audiences
(newspaper/tv/radio)
Mediated interaction: messaging (E-mail, social media, whatsapp) via indirect sources where
individuals can work together as well as co-group communication
Theory: how I think things work. Proposition thus may not always be true (can be proven by testing)
-> commonly remain unproven and thus does not truly represent reality
Model: abstract representation of a process, description, of its structure or function. Models are
representations and cannot capture a process in its entirety.
- Can be useful to help us understand how a process works.
Why: trying to make sense on processes
How: explanatory (explain the process), predictive (to test a process), control
function (how to modify/control a process)
What: make assumptions, different ways to model a process, models are
incomplete by definition
Models can serve:
- Explanatory functions: dividing a process into constituent parts and showing us how the parts
are connected
- Predictive functions: allow “if….then” questions (traffic simulations)
- Control functions: show how to control a process
