Copyright © 2015 Bert N. Langford (Images may be subject to copyright. Please send feedback)
Welcome to Our Generation USA!

Communications 
as  Inter- and intra-personal Communications in all its forms, including all forms of Life as well as Telecommunications and Languages/Dialects.


For related web pages, click on their respective name below:
"Our Mobile World"
"Our Free Press"
The Media
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Communications in the United States
 YouTube Video: Stone Age to Modern Age - Evolution Of Communication
Pictured: Different Types of Wireless Communication with Applications

​The primary regulator of communications in the United States is the Federal Communications Commission (see later topic below). It closely regulates all of the industries mentioned below with the exception of newspapers and the Internet service provider industry.

History:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent government agency responsible for regulating the radio, television and phone industries. The FCC regulates all interstate communications, such as wire, satellite and cable, and international communications originating or terminating in the United States.

Press:
Main article: Newspapers in the United States

Newspapers declined in their influence and penetration into American households in the late 20th century. Most newspapers are local, having little circulation outside their particular metropolitan area. The closest thing to a national paper the U.S. has is USA Today. Other influential dailies include The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal which are sold in most U.S. cities.

The largest newspapers (by circulation) in the United States are USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Mail:

The legal monopoly of the government-owned United States Postal Service has narrowed during the 20th and 21st centuries due to competition from companies such as UPS & FedEx, although still delivers the vast majority of US mail.

Telephone:
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Telephone system: 
  • General assessment: A large, technologically advanced, multipurpose communications system. 
  • Domestic: A large system of fiber-optic cable, microwave radio relay, coaxial cable, and domestic satellites carries every form of telephone traffic; a rapidly growing cellular system carries mobile telephone traffic throughout the country. 
  • International: Country code - 1; 24 ocean cable systems in use; satellite earth stations - 61 Intelsat (45 Atlantic Ocean and 16 Pacific Ocean), 5 Intersputnik (Atlantic Ocean region), and 4 Inmarsat (Pacific and Atlantic Ocean regions) (2000).

Landlines:

Telephones - main lines in use: 141 million (2009)
  • Most of the American telephone system was formerly operated by a single monopoly, AT&T, which was split up in 1984 into a long distance telephone company and seven regional "Baby Bells".
  • Landline telephone service continues to be divided between incumbent local exchange carriers and several competing long distance companies. As of 2005, some of the Baby Bells are beginning to merge with long distance phone companies. A small number of consumers are currently experimenting with Voice over Internet Protocol phone service.
  • Most local loop service to homes is provided through old-fashioned copper wire, although many of the providers have upgraded the so-called "last mile" to fiber optic.
  • Early in the 21st century the number of wire lines in use stopped growing and in some markets began to decline.

Cellular/Wireless communication:
Main article: Mobile phone industry in the United States

Telephones - mobile cellular: 286 million (2009) ​
Radio:
Main article: Radio in the United States

Radio as:
  • broadcast stations: 
    • AM: 4,669;
    • FM: as
      • commercial stations: 6,746;
      • educational stations: 4,101;
      • translators & boosters: 7,253;
      • low-power FM stations: 1,678 (as of December 31, 2016, according to the Federal Communications Commission)
  • Most broadcast stations are controlled by large media conglomerates like iHeartMedia. There are also many small independent local stations. National Public Radio (NPR) is the public radio network.

Radios: 575 million (1997)

Television:
​Main article: Television in the United States

Television broadcast stations: 7,533 (of which 1,778 are full-power TV stations; 417 are class-A TV stations; 3,789 are TV translators; and 1,966 are other low-power TV stations) (as of December 31, 2016, according to the Federal Communications Commission); in addition, there are about 12,000 cable TV systems.

Most local commercial television stations are owned-and-operated by or affiliated with the large national broadcast networks such as:
Some television networks are aimed at ethnic minorities, including Spanish-language networks Univisión and Telemundo.

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is the country's main public broadcasting network, with over 300 non-profit affiliated stations across the United States.

Besides the large broadcast networks (which are free for anyone with a TV and an antenna), there are also many networks available only with a subscription to cable or satellite television, like CNN.

Television Sets: 219 million (1997)

See also: 
Internet:
Main article: Internet in the United States

Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 7,600 (1999 est.)
  • Because of aggressive lobbying and the United States' strong libertarian traditions, the Internet service provider industry remains relatively unregulated in comparison to other communications industries.

Country code (Top level domain): US
  • For various historical reasons, the .us domain was never widely used outside of a small number of government agencies and school districts. Most companies signed up for top level domains like .com instead.
  • NeuStar Inc. now has control over the .us registry and is trying to promote the domain as an option for American-oriented Web sites.

See Also:







​The History of Communications, along with the  History of Telecommunications
YouTube Video: The History of Telecommunications (In Just 3 Minutes) | HP Matter

History of Communications:

Since prehistoric times, significant changes in communication technologies (media and appropriate inscription tools) have evolved in tandem with shifts in political and economic systems, and by extension, systems of power. Communication can range from very subtle processes of exchange, to full conversations and mass communication.

Human communication was revolutionized with the origin of speech approximately 500,000 years ago. Symbols were developed about 30,000 years ago. The imperfection of speech, which nonetheless allowed easier dissemination of ideas and stimulated inventions, eventually resulted in the creation of new forms of communications, improving both the range at which people could communicate and the longevity of the information. All of those inventions were based on the key concept of the symbol.

The oldest known symbols created for the purpose of communication were cave paintings, a form of rock art, dating to the Upper Paleolithic age. The oldest known cave painting is located within Chauvet Cave, dated to around 30,000 BC. 

These paintings contained increasing amounts of information: people may have created the first calendar as far back as 15,000 years ago.

The connection between drawing and writing is further shown by linguistics: in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece the concepts and words of drawing and writing were one and the same.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the History of Communications: ___________________________________________________________________________

Please Note: We have deviated from our usual source to clarify that -- unlike Communications (above) -- Telecommunications did NOT commence with Early Man, but rather when electronic devices enabled telecommunications starting with the telegraph and telephone.​

History of Telecommunications:

This article details the history of telecommunication and the individuals who helped make telecommunication systems what they are today.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the History of Telecommunications:
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Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 
YouTube Video: What happens to our Internet if net neutrality is gone? - Washington Post 11/21/2017
Pictured below: 'Net Neutrality Under Attack

​The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government created by statute (47 U.S.C. § 151 and 47 U.S.C. § 154) to regulate interstate communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable.

The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the media, public safety and homeland security, and modernizing itself.
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The FCC was formed by the Communications Act of 1934 to replace the radio regulation functions of the Federal Radio Commission. The FCC took over wire communication regulation from the Interstate Commerce Commission. The FCC's mandated jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Territories of the United States.

The FCC also provides varied degrees of cooperation, oversight, and leadership for similar communications bodies in other countries of North America. The FCC is funded entirely by regulatory fees. It has an estimated fiscal-2016 budget of US $388 million. It has 1,688 federal employees, made up of 50% males and 50% females as of December, 2017.

Mission and Strategy:

​The FCC's mission, specified in Section One of the Communications Act of 1934 and amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (amendment to 47 U.S.C. §151) is to "make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nationwide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges."

The Act furthermore provides that the FCC was created "for the purpose of the national defense" and "for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communications."

Consistent with the objectives of the Act as well as the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), the FCC has identified six goals in its 2006–2011 Strategic Plan. These are:
  • Broadband: "All Americans should have affordable access to robust and reliable broadband products and services. Regulatory policies must promote technological neutrality, competition, investment, and innovation to ensure that broadband service providers have sufficient incentives to develop and offer such products and services."
  • Competition: "Competition in the provision of communication services, both domestically and overseas, supports the Nation's economy. The competitive framework for communications services should foster innovation and offer consumers reliable, meaningful choice in affordable services."
  • Spectrum: "Efficient and effective use of non-federal spectrum domestically and internationally promotes the growth and rapid development of innovative and efficient communication technologies and services."
  • Media: "The Nation's media regulations must promote competition and diversity and facilitate the transition to digital modes of delivery."
  • Public Safety and Homeland Security: "Communications during emergencies and crisis must be available for public safety, health, defense, and emergency personnel, as well as all consumers in need. The Nation's critical communications infrastructure must be reliable, interoperable, redundant, and rapidly restorable."
  • Modernize the FCC: "The Commission shall strive to be highly productive, adaptive, and innovative organization that maximizes the benefits to stakeholders, staff, and management from effective systems, processes, resources, and organizational culture." (2008).

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Federal Communications Commission:
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​Timeline of Communications Technology Inventions (including Television)
YouTube Video: Social Media - The Evolution of communication technology
Pictured: ​LEFT: Analog Television later replaced with (RIGHT) Digital High Definition Television (the Samsung 78” Class KS9500 Curved 4K SUHD TV)

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for a list of communications technology advancements:

​20th century:
21st century:
  • 2001 – First digital cinema transmission by satellite in Europe of a feature film by Bernard Pauchon and Philippe Binant.
  • 2003 – MySpace is launched.
  • 2003 – Skype video calling software is launched.
  • 2004 – What would become the largest social networking site in the world, Facebook is launched.
  • 2005 – YouTube, the video sharing site, is launched.
  • 2006 – Twitter, microblogging

See also:



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Famous Catchphrases
YouTube Video: Year in review: Donald Trump's craziest quotes in 2017
Pictured below: The 50 greatest Yogi Berra quotes
A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass media (such as films, internet, literature and publishing, television and radio).

Some become the de facto or literal "trademark" or "signature" of the person or character with whom they originated, and can be instrumental in the typecasting of a particular actor.

According to Richard Harris, a psychology professor at Kansas State University who studied why people like to cite films in social situations, using film quotes in everyday conversation is similar to telling a joke and a way to form solidarity with others. "People are doing it to feel good about themselves, to make others laugh, to make themselves laugh", he said.

Harris found that all of the participants in his study had used film quotes in conversation at one point or another. "They overwhelmingly cited comedies, followed distantly by dramas and action adventure flicks." Horror films, musicals and children's films were hardly ever cited.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

[Your Web Host: I thought to add the following article about Yogi Berra, who was both an outstanding athlete (caught the only MJB World Series perfect game) and famous for his catchphrases as follows, courtesy of For  the Win, USA Today:

​Yankees legend Yogi Berra was an 18-time All-Star, Berra appeared in 14 World Series as a member of the Yankees and won 10 of them.

Berra’s contributions to MLB history are incalculable, but his legacy might be even better remembered for what he contributed to American language. A sportswriters’ favorite, Berra had countless expressions and turns of phrase that were memorable because most of them didn’t make any sense. (At the same time, every one had some truth to it.)

Berra-isms (colloquial expressions that lack logic) are now countless, and many of them are just attributed to Berra, even if he never actually said them. As he so perfectly put it: “I never said most of the things I said.” Here are 50 of our favorites.
  1. When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
  2. You can observe a lot by just watching.
  3. It ain’t over till it’s over.
  4. It’s like déjà vu all over again.
  5. No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.
  6. Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.
  7. A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.
  8. Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.
  9. We made too many wrong mistakes.
  10. Congratulations. I knew the record would stand until it was broken.
  11. You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.
  12.  You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.
  13. I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.
  14. Never answer an anonymous letter.
  15. Slump? I ain’t in no slump… I just ain’t hitting.
  16. How can you think and hit at the same time?
  17. The future ain’t what it used to be.
  18. I tell the kids, somebody’s gotta win, somebody’s gotta lose. Just don’t fight about it. Just try to get better.
  19. It gets late early out here.
  20. If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.
  21. We have deep depth.
  22. Pair up in threes.
  23. Why buy good luggage, you only use it when you travel.
  24. You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.
  25. All pitchers are liars or crybabies.
  26. Even Napoleon had his Watergate.
  27. Bill Dickey is learning me his experience.
  28. He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious.
  29. It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.
  30. I can see how he (Sandy Koufax) won twenty-five games. What I don’t understand is how he lost five.
  31. I don’t know (if they were men or women fans running naked across the field). They had bags over their heads.
  32. I’m a lucky guy and I’m happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary.
  33. I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.
  34. In baseball, you don’t know nothing.
  35. I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?
  36. I never said most of the things I said.
  37. It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.
  38. If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going to answer.
  39. I wish everybody had the drive he (Joe DiMaggio) had. He never did anything wrong on the field. I’d never seen him dive for a ball, everything was a chest-high catch, and he never walked off the field.
  40. So I’m ugly. I never saw anyone hit with his face.
  41. Take it with a grin of salt.
  42. (On the 1973 Mets) We were overwhelming underdogs.
  43. The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.
  44. Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.
  45. Mickey Mantle was a very good golfer, but we weren’t allowed to play golf during the season; only at spring training.
  46. You don’t have to swing hard to hit a home run. If you got the timing, it’ll go.
  47. I’m lucky. Usually you’re dead to get your own museum, but I’m still alive to see mine.
  48. If I didn’t make it in baseball, I won’t have made it workin’. I didn’t like to work.
  49. If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.
  50. A lot of guys go, ‘Hey, Yog, say a Yogi-ism.’ I tell ’em, ‘I don’t know any.’ They want me to make one up. I don’t make ’em up. I don’t even know when I say it. They’re the truth. And it is the truth. I don’t know.

[End of Article]








​Text Messaging including its SMS Language
YouTube Video of Crash Shows Dangers of Texting While Driving.
YouTube Video: How to Send a Text Message
Pictured: Texting  ideograms ("To send this:") as translated from keyboard entry ("Type this:")

Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile phones, fixed devices (e.g., desktop computers) or portable devices (e.g., tablet computers or smartphones).

While text messages are usually sent over a phone network, due to the convergence between the telecommunication and broadcasting industries in the 2000s, text messages may also be sent via a cable network or Local Area Network.

The term originally referred to messages sent using the Short Message Service (SMS). It has grown beyond alphanumeric text to include multimedia messages (known as MMS) containing digital images, videos, and sound content, as well as ideograms known as emoji (happy faces and other icons).

As of 2017, text messages are used by youth and adults for personal, family and social purposes and in business, government and non-governmental organizations for communication between colleagues. As with e-mailing, in the 2010s, the sending of short informal messages has become an accepted part of many cultures.

This makes texting a quick and easy way to communicate with friends and colleagues, including in contexts where a phone call would be impolite or inappropriate (e.g., calling very late at night or when one knows the other person is busy with family or work activities).

Like e-mail and voice mail, and unlike landline or mobile phone calls (in which the caller hopes to speak directly with the recipient), texting does not require the caller and recipient to both be free at the same moment; this permits communication even between busy individuals.

Text messages can also be used to interact with automated systems, for example, to order products or services from e-commerce websites, or to participate in online contests.

Advertisers and service providers use direct text marketing to send messages to mobile phone users about promotions, payment due dates, and other notifications instead of using postal mail, e-mail, or voicemail.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Text Messaging: ​___________________________________________________________________________

SMS Language

SMS language, textspeak or texting language is the abbreviated language and slang commonly used with mobile phone text messaging, or other Internet-based communication such as email and instant messaging.

Three features of early mobile phone messaging encouraged users to use abbreviations:
  1. Text entry was difficult, requiring multiple key presses on a small keypad to generate each letter;
  2. messages were limited to 160 characters; and
  3. it made texting faster.

Once it became popular it took on a life of its own and was often used outside to write formal emails or letters.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about SMS Language use in Texting:

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Languages and Dialects Spoken in the United States
YouTube Video: the Difference between a Language and a Dialect

Many languages are spoken, or historically have been spoken, in the United States. Today over 350 languages are used by the U.S. population. The most commonly used language is English (specifically, American English), which is the de facto national language of the United States.

Since the 1965 Immigration Act, Spanish is the second most common language in the country. The United States does not have an official language, but 32 state governments out of 50 have declared English to be one, or the only, official language. The government of Louisiana offers services and most documents in both English and French, as does New Mexico in English and Spanish.

The government of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, operates almost entirely in Spanish, even though its official languages are Spanish and English. There are many languages indigenous to North America or to U.S. states or holdings in the Pacific region. Hawaiian, although having few native speakers, is an official language along with English of the state of Hawaii. Alaska formalizes English and twenty native languages.

Language Spoken at home
(U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2016) List

According to the 2016 American Community Survey, a project of the United States Census Bureau, the languages spoken at home by the most people older than five years of age are:
While modern estimates indicate that American Sign Language was signed by as many as 500,000 Americans, as of 1972—the last official survey, closer estimates range around 100,000 as of 2011. (Although various cultural factors, such as passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, have resulted in far greater educational opportunities for deaf children, which could double or triple the number of current ASL users.)

Click here for more about Languages of the United States.
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The following is an overview list of dialects of English. Dialects are linguistic varieties which may differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling and grammar. For the classification of varieties of English in terms of pronunciation only, see Regional accents of English.
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Dialects can be defined as "sub-forms of languages which are, in general, mutually comprehensible". English speakers from different countries and regions use a variety of different accents (systems of pronunciation), as well as various localized words and grammatical constructions; many different dialects can be identified based on these factors.

Dialects can be classified at broader or narrower levels: within a broad national or regional dialect, various more localized sub-dialects can be identified, and so on. The combination of differences in pronunciation and use of local words may make some English dialects almost unintelligible to speakers from other regions.

The major native dialects of English are often divided by linguists into three general categories: the British Isles dialects, those of North America, and those of Australasia.

Dialects can be associated not only with place, but also with particular social groups. Within a given English-speaking country, there will often be a form of the language considered to be Standard English – the Standard Englishes of different countries differ, and each can itself be considered a dialect. Standard English is often associated with the more educated layers of society.

​The following is a list of dialects spoken in the United States:







Voice Language Translation including Multilingualism
YouTube Video: Google demos real time language translation with new Pixel 2
Pictured below: 
TOP: What Do Interpreters and Translators Do?
BOTTOM: Automatic Voice to Voice Language Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (not all languages do) between translating (a written text) and interpreting (oral or sign-language communication between users of different languages); under this distinction, translation can begin only after the appearance of writing within a language community.

A translator always risks inadvertently introducing source-language words, grammar, or syntax into the target-language rendering. On the other hand, such "spill-overs" have sometimes imported useful source-language calques and loanwords that have enriched target languages. Translators, including early translators of sacred texts, have helped shape the very languages into which they have translated.

Because of the laboriousness of the translation process, since the 1940s efforts have been made, with varying degrees of success, to automate translation or to mechanically aid the human translator. More recently, the rise of the Internet has fostered a world-wide market for translation services and has facilitated "language localization".

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Language Translation: ___________________________________________________________________________

​Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population.

More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue; nevertheless, many of these are monoscriptual. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of globalization and cultural openness. 

Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages is becoming increasingly frequent, thereby promoting a need to acquire additional languages. People who speak several languages are also called polyglots.

Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the so-called first language (L1). The first language (sometimes also referred to as the mother tongue) is acquired without formal education, by mechanisms heavily disputed. Children acquiring two languages in this way are called simultaneous bilinguals.

Even in the case of simultaneous bilinguals, one language usually dominates the other. People who know more than one language have been reported to be more adept at language learning compared to monolinguals. 

Additionally, bilinguals often have important economic advantages over monolingual individuals as bilingual people are able to carry out duties that monolinguals cannot, such as interacting with customers who only speak a minority language.

Multilingualism in computing can be considered part of a continuum between internationalization and localization. Due to the status of English in computing, software development nearly always uses it (but see also Non-English-based programming languages), so almost all commercial software is initially available in an English version, and multilingual versions, if any, may be produced as alternative options based on the English original.

Definition of Multilingualism:

The definition of multilingualism is a subject of debate in the very same way as the definition of language fluency. On one end of a sort of linguistic continuum, one may define multilingualism as complete competence and mastery in another language.

The speaker would presumably have complete knowledge and control over the language so as to sound native. On the opposite end of the spectrum would be people who know enough phrases to get around as a tourist using the alternate language.

Since 1992, Vivian Cook has argued that most multilingual speakers fall somewhere between minimal and maximal definitions. Cook calls these people multi-competent. In addition, there is no consistent definition of what constitutes a distinct language.

For instance, scholars often disagree whether Scots is a language in its own right or a dialect of English. Furthermore, what is considered a language can change, often for purely political purposes, such as when Serbo-Croatian was created as a standard language on the basis of the Eastern Herzegovinian dialect to function as umbrella for numerous South Slavic dialects, and after the breakup of Yugoslavia was split into Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin, or when Ukrainian was dismissed as a Russian dialect by the Russian tsars to discourage national feelings. 

Many small independent nations' schoolchildren are today compelled to learn multiple languages because of international interactions. For example, in Finland, all children are required to learn at least two foreign languages: the other national language (Swedish or Finnish) and one alien language (usually English). Many Finnish schoolchildren also select further languages, such as German or Russian.

In some large nations with multiple languages, such as India, schoolchildren may routinely learn multiple languages based on where they reside in the country. In major metropolitan areas of Central, Southern and Eastern India, many children may be fluent in four languages (the mother tongue, the state language, and the official languages of India, Hindi and English). Thus, a child of Telugu parents living in Bangalore will end up speaking his or her mother tongue (Telugu) at home and the state language (Kannada), Hindi and English in school and life.

​Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Multilingualism:


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Telecommunications
YouTube Video: How Telecommunication Works
YouTube Video: The Future of the Telecommunications Industry
Pictured Below: The Importance of Telecommunications

Telecommunication is the transmission of signs, signals, messages, words, writings, images and sounds or information of any nature by wire, radio, optical or electromagnetic systems. Telecommunication occurs when the exchange of information between communication participants includes the use of technology.

Telecommunications is transmitted either electrically over physical media, such as cables, or via electromagnetic radiation. Such transmission paths are often divided into communication channels which afford the advantages of multiplexing.

Since the Latin term communicatio is considered the social process of information exchange, the term telecommunications is often used in its plural form because it involves many different technologies.

Early means of communicating over a distance included visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs. 
Other examples of pre-modern long-distance communication included audio messages such as coded drumbeats, lung-blown horns, and loud whistles.

20th- and 21st-century technologies for long-distance communication usually involve electrical and electromagnetic technologies, such as: 
​A revolution in wireless communication began in the first decade of the 20th century with the pioneering developments in radio communications by Guglielmo Marconi, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909, and other notable pioneering inventors and developers in the field of electrical and electronic telecommunications. These included: 
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Telecommunications:







Communications Satellites
YouTube Video: How Non-Stop Communications With Satellites Is Achieved by NASA
Picture below: An Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications Orion satellite relays secure communications for the United States and other allied countries.

A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunications signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth.

Communications satellites are used for television, telephone, radio, internet, and military applications. There are over 2,000 communications satellites in Earth’s orbit, used by both private and government organizations.

Wireless communication uses electromagnetic waves to carry signals. These waves require line-of-sight, and are thus obstructed by the curvature of the Earth. The purpose of communications satellites is to relay the signal around the curve of the Earth allowing communication between widely separated points.

Communications satellites use a wide range of radio and microwave frequencies. To avoid signal interference, international organizations have regulations for which frequency ranges or "bands" certain organizations are allowed to use. This allocation of bands minimizes the risk of signal interference.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Communications Satellites:







The Invention of the Telephone by the Inventor Alexander Graham Bell and the company he founded: AT&T Pictured below: (LEFT: Bell placing the first New York to Chicago telephone call in 1892; RIGHT: variety of telephone models that evolved over the years.
[Your WebHost: you will note that the web page "Our Mobile World" covers today's telephone technologies, a huge jump in capabilities from the wired land lines of the telephone's ancient past, covered herein!] 

A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. A common short form of the term is phone, which has been in use since the early 20th century.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be granted a United States patent for a device that produced clearly intelligible replication of the human voice. This instrument was further developed by many others, and became rapidly indispensable in business, government, and in households.

The essential elements of a telephone are a microphone (transmitter) to speak into and an earphone (receiver) which reproduces the voice in a distant location. In addition, most telephones contain a ringer to announce an incoming telephone call, and a dial or keypad to enter a telephone number when initiating a call to another telephone.

The receiver and transmitter are usually built into a handset which is held up to the ear and mouth during conversation. The dial may be located either on the handset or on a base unit to which the handset is connected. The transmitter converts the sound waves to electrical signals which are sent through a telephone network to the receiving telephone, which converts the signals into audible sound in the receiver or sometimes a loudspeaker.

Telephones are duplex devices, meaning they permit transmission in both directions simultaneously.

The first telephones were directly connected to each other from one customer's office or residence to another customer's location. Being impractical beyond just a few customers, these systems were quickly replaced by manually operated centrally located switchboards.

These exchanges were soon connected together, eventually forming an automated, worldwide public switched telephone network.

For greater mobility, various radio systems were developed for transmission between mobile stations on ships and automobiles in the mid-20th century. Hand-held mobile phones were introduced for personal service starting in 1973. In later decades their analog cellular system evolved into digital networks 

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Alexander Graham Bell:

Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885.

Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work. His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices which eventually culminated in Bell being awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone, on March 7, 1876. Bell considered his invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study.

Many other inventions marked Bell's later life, including groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics.

Although Bell was not one of the 33 founders of the National Geographic Society, he had a strong influence on the magazine while serving as the second president from January 7, 1898, until 1903.

Beyond his scientific work, Bell was an advocate of compulsory sterilization, and served as chairman or president of several eugenics organizations.

Click here for more about Alexander Graham Bell.
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AT&T:

​American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T Inc.) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas, and incorporated in Delaware. It is the world's largest telecommunications company, the largest provider of mobile telephone services, and the largest provider of fixed telephone services in the United States through AT&T Communications.

Since June 14, 2018, it is also the parent company of mass media conglomerate WarnerMedia, making it the world's largest media and entertainment company in terms of revenue. As of 2018, AT&T was ranked #9 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

AT&T began its history as Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, a subsidiary of the Bell Telephone Company, founded by Alexander Graham Bell (above) in 1877. The Bell Telephone Company became the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1885 and was later rebranded as AT&T Corporation.

The 1982 United States v. AT&T antitrust lawsuit resulted in the divestiture of AT&T Corporation's ("Ma Bell") subsidiaries or Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), commonly referred to as "Baby Bells", resulting in several independent companies, including Southwestern Bell Corporation; the latter changed its name to SBC Communications Inc. in 1995.

In 2005, SBC purchased its former parent AT&T Corporation and took on its branding, with the merged entity naming itself AT&T Inc. and using its history, iconic logo and stock-trading symbol. AT&T Inc. acquired BellSouth in 2006, the last independent Baby Bell company, making its formerly joint venture Cingular Wireless (which had acquired AT&T Wireless in 2004) wholly owned and rebranding it as AT&T Mobility.

The current AT&T reconstitutes much of the former Bell System, and includes ten of the original 22 Bell Operating Companies along with the original long-distance division.

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Regional Bell Operating Company ("Baby Bells") including a List of Telephone Operating Companies ​Pictured below: A map of the Original "Baby Bells".
Click here for a List of Telephone Operating Companies around the World.

The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) are the result of United States v. AT&T, the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company (later known as AT&T Corp.).

On January 8, 1982, AT&T Corp. settled the suit and agreed to divest its local exchange service operating companies. Effective January 1, 1984, AT&T Corp.'s local operations were split into seven independent Regional Bell Operating Companies known as Baby Bells.

RBOCs were originally known as Regional Holding Companies (RHCs). Currently, three companies have the RBOCs as predecessors: AT&T Inc., Verizon, and CenturyLink. Some other companies are holding onto smaller segments of the companies.

​Baby Bells:

After the Modification of Final Judgment, the resulting Baby Bells were originally named:
Prior to 1984, AT&T Corp. also held investments in two smaller and otherwise independent companies, Cincinnati Bell and Southern New England Telephone (SNET).

Following the 1984 breakup, these became fully independent as well.

All nine local-exchange holding companies were assigned a share of the rights to the Bell trademark.

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World Population by Language based on Number of Native Speakers vs. Total Number of Speakers Pictured: World Population by Language based on Number of Native Speakers
World Population by Language based on: (1) Number of Native Speakers

This article ranks human languages by their number of native speakers. However, all such rankings should be used with caution. It is difficult to define the difference between a language and a dialect, or between a language and a macrolanguage; for example, Chinese is sometimes considered a single language and sometimes a macro-language whose many varieties are all independent languages.

Any division of speakers among languages is the result of the classification of these speakers. Often such classifications are based on political or cultural factors. Although such classifications are not entirely arbitrary, it is not possible to devise a coherent linguistic set of criteria for the boundaries between languages.

For a list of languages with the smallest numbers of native speakers, see lists of endangered languages.

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World Population by Language based on: List of languages by total number of speakers

​A number of sources have compiled lists of languages by their number of speakers. However, all such lists should be used with caution.
  • First, it is difficult to define exactly what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect. For example, some languages including Chinese and Arabic are sometimes considered single languages and sometimes language families. Similarly, Hindi is sometimes considered a collective language including Mewari, Chhattisgarhi, Bhojpuri etc., but together with Urdu it also is often considered a single language Hindustani.
  • Second, there is no single criterion for how much knowledge is sufficient to be counted as a second-language speaker. For example, English has about 400 million native speakers but, depending on the criterion chosen, can be said to have as many as 2 billion speakers.
​
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​Language including a List of languages by number of native speakers Pictured below: Other Languages, including the Theory of Language
​A language is a structured system of communication. Language, in a broader sense, is the method of communication that involves the use of – particularly human – languages.
​
The scientific study of language is called linguistics.

Questions concerning the philosophy of language, such as whether words can represent experience, have been debated at least since Gorgias and Plato in ancient Greece. Thinkers such as Rousseau have argued that language originated from emotions while others like Kant have held that it originated from rational and logical thought.

20th-century philosophers such as Wittgenstein argued that philosophy is really the study of language. Major figures in linguistics include Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky.

Estimates of the number of human languages in the world vary between 5,000 and 7,000. However, any precise estimate depends on the arbitrary distinction (dichotomy) between languages and dialect.

Natural languages are spoken or signed, but any language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli – for example, in writing, whistling, signing, or braille. This is because human language is modality-independent.

Depending on philosophical perspectives regarding the definition of language and meaning, when used as a general concept, "language" may refer to the cognitive ability to learn and use systems of complex communication, or to describe the set of rules that makes up these systems, or the set of utterances that can be produced from those rules.

All languages rely on the process of semiosis to relate signs to particular meanings. Oral, manual and tactile languages contain a phonological system that governs how symbols are used to form sequences known as words or morphemes, and a syntactic system that governs how words and morphemes are combined to form phrases and utterances.

Human language has the properties of productivity and displacement, and relies entirely on social convention and learning. Its complex structure affords a much wider range of expressions than any known system of animal communication.

Language is thought to have originated when early hominins started gradually changing their primate communication systems, acquiring the ability to form a theory of other minds and a shared intentionality. This development is sometimes thought to have coincided with an increase in brain volume, and many linguists see the structures of language as having evolved to serve specific communicative and social functions.

Language is processed in many different locations in the human brain, but especially in Broca's and Wernicke's areas. Humans acquire language through social interaction in early childhood, and children generally speak fluently by approximately three years old. The use of language is deeply entrenched in human culture.

Therefore, in addition to its strictly communicative uses, language also has many social and cultural uses, such as signifying group identity, social stratification, as well as social grooming and entertainment.

Languages evolve and diversify over time, and the history of their evolution can be reconstructed by comparing modern languages to determine which traits their ancestral languages must have had in order for the later developmental stages to occur. A group of languages that descend from a common ancestor is known as a language family;
Academic consensus holds that between 50% and 90% of languages spoken at the beginning of the 21st century will probably have become extinct by the year 2100.

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List of languages by number of native speakers:

This article ranks human languages by their number of native speakers.
However, all such rankings should be used with caution, because it is not possible to devise a coherent set of linguistic criteria for distinguishing languages in a dialect continuum.

For example, a language is often defined as a set of varieties that are mutually intelligible, but independent national standard languages may be considered to be separate languages even though they are largely mutually intelligible, as in the case of Danish and Norwegian.

Conversely, many commonly accepted languages, including German, Italian and even English, encompass varieties that are not mutually intelligible. While Arabic is sometimes considered a single language centered on Modern Standard Arabic, other authors describe its mutually unintelligible varieties as separate languages.

Similarly, Chinese is sometimes viewed as a single language because of a shared culture and common literary language It is also common to describe various Chinese dialect groups, such as Mandarin, Wu and Yue, as languages, even though each of these groups contains many mutually unintelligible varieties.

There are also difficulties in obtaining reliable counts of speakers, which vary over time because of population change and language shift. In some areas, there is no reliable census data, the data is not current, or the census may not record languages spoken, or record them ambiguously. Sometimes speaker populations are exaggerated for political reasons, or speakers of minority languages may be under-reported in favour of a national language.

Click here for a List of Top Languages by Population.

See also: ​







​Sign Language, featuring Actress Marlee Beth Matlin, who has become an award-winning Actress in spite of being Deaf! Pictured below:
TOP: The Alphabet in Sign Language
BOTTOM: Marlee Matlin, acclaimed actress overcoming being deaf, receives her Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 
Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers.

Sign languages are full-fledged natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon. Sign languages are not universal and are usually not mutually intelligible, although there are also similarities among different sign languages.

Linguists consider both spoken and signed communication to be types of natural language, meaning that both emerged through an abstract, protracted aging process and evolved over time without meticulous planning. Sign language should not be confused with body language, a type of nonverbal communication.

Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages have developed as useful means of communication and form the core of local Deaf cultures.

Although signing is used primarily by the deaf and hard of hearing, it is also used by hearing individuals, such as those unable to physically speak, those who have trouble with oral language due to a disability or condition (augmentative and alternative communication), and those with deaf family members including children of deaf adults.

The number of sign languages worldwide is not precisely known. Each country generally has its own native sign language; some have more than one. The 2021 edition of Ethnologue lists 150 sign languages, while the SIGN-HUB Atlas of Sign Language Structures lists over 200 and notes that there are more which have not been documented or discovered yet. 

As of 2021, Indo Sign Language is the most used sign language in the world, and Ethnologue ranks it as the 151st most "spoken" language in the world.

Some sign languages have obtained some form of legal recognition.

Linguists distinguish natural sign languages from other systems that are precursors to them or obtained from them, such as constructed manual codes for spoken languages, home sign, "baby sign", and signs learned by non-human primates.

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Pictured below: Marlee Matlin says she hopes fellow deaf 'CODA' actor Troy Kotsur winning an Oscar 'opens the floodgates'
Marlee Beth Matlin (born August 24, 1965) is an American actress, author, and activist. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for a BAFTA Award, and four Primetime Emmy Awards.

Deaf since she was 18 months old, Matlin made her acting debut playing Sarah Norman in the romantic drama film Children of a Lesser God (1986), winning the Academy Award for Best Actress. She is the first deaf performer to win an Academy Award, as well as the youngest winner in the Best Actress category. 

Matlin starred in the police drama series Reasonable Doubts (1991–1993), which earned her two Golden Globe Award nominations, and her guest roles in Seinfeld (1993), Picket Fences (1993), The Practice (2000), and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2004–05) earned her four Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

For her role in CODA (2021), Matlin won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Matlin is a prominent member of the National Association of the Deaf, and her interpreter is Jack Jason. In 2009, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (see photo at the beginning of Sign Language above).

Click here for more about Marlee Matlin.







​
Human Communications
Human communication, or anthroposemiotics, is a field of study dedicated to understanding how humans communicate. Humans ability to communicate with one another would not be possible without an understanding of what we are referencing or thinking about.

Because humans are unable to fully understand one another's perspective, there needs to be a creation of commonality through a shared mindset or viewpoint. The field of communication is very diverse, as there are multiple layers of what communication is and how we use its different features as human beings.

Humans have communicatory abilities other animals do not, for example, humans are able to communicate about time and place as though they are solid objects. Humans communicate to request help, to inform others, and to share attitudes for bonding. 

Communication is a joint activity largely dependent on the ability to maintain common attention. We share relevant background knowledge and joint experience in order to communicate content and coherence in exchanges.

The evolution of human communication took place over a long period of time. Humans evolved from simple hand gestures to the use of spoken language. Most face-to-face communication requires visually reading and following along with the other person, offering gestures in reply, and maintaining eye contact throughout the interaction.


Category:

The current study of human communication can be branched off into two major categories; rhetorical and relational. The focus of rhetorical communication is primarily on the study of influence; the art of rhetorical communication is based on the idea of persuasion.

The relational approach examines communication from a transactional perspective; two or more people interact to reach an agreed perspective.

In its early stages, rhetoric was developed to help ordinary people prove their claims in court; this shows how persuasion is key in this form of communication. Aristotle stated that effective rhetoric is based on argumentation.

As explained in the text, rhetoric involves a dominant party and a submissive party or a party that succumbs to that of the most dominant party. While the rhetorical approach stems from Western societies, the relational approach stems from Eastern societies.

Eastern societies hold higher standards for cooperation, which makes sense as to why they would sway more toward a relational approach for that matter. "Maintaining valued relationships is generally seen as more important than exerting influence and control over others". "The study of human communication today is more diversified than ever before in its history".

Classification of human communication can be found in the workplace, especially for group work. Co-workers need to argue with each other to gain the best solutions for their projects, while they also need to nurture their relationship to maintain their collaboration.

For example, in their group work, they may use the communication tactic of "saving face".
Spoken language involves speech, mostly human quality to acquire. For example, chimpanzees are humans' closest relative, but they are unable to produce speech.

Chimpanzees are the closest living species to humans. Chimpanzees are closer to humans, in genetic and evolutionary terms, than they are to gorillas or other apes. The fact that a chimpanzee will not acquire speech, even when raised in a human home with all the environmental input of a normal human child, is one of the central puzzles we face when contemplating the biology of our species.

In repeated experiments, starting in the 1910s, chimpanzees raised in close contact with humans have universally failed to speak, or even to try to speak, despite their rapid progress in many other intellectual and motor domains. Each normal human is born with a capacity to rapidly and unerringly acquire their mother tongue, with little explicit teaching or coaching.

In contrast, no nonhuman primate has spontaneously produced even a word of the local language.

Definition:

Human communication can be defined as any Shared Symbolic Interaction.
  • Shared, because each communication process also requires a system of signification (the Code) as its necessary condition, and if the encoding is not known to all those who are involved in the communication process, there is no understanding and therefore fails the same notification.
  • Symbolic, because there is need of a signifier or sign, which allows the transmission of the message.
  • Interaction, since it involves two or more people, resulting in a further increase of knowledge on the part of all those who interact.

Types:

Human communication can be subdivided into a variety of types:

Intrapersonal communication (communication with oneself):

This very basic form of information, is the standard and foundation, of all things communication. This communication with ourselves, showcases the process in which we think on our previous and ongoing actions, as well as what we choose to understand from other types of communications and events. Our intrapersonal communication, may be shown and expressed to others by our reactions to certain outcomes, through simple acts of gestures and expressions.

Interpersonal communication (communication between two or more people) -

Communication relies heavily on understanding the processes and situations that you are in, in order to communicate affectively. It is more than simple behaviors and strategies, on how and what it means to communicate with another person.

Interpersonal communication, reflects the personality and characteristics, of a person, seen through the type of dialect, form, and content, a person chooses to communicate with. As simple as this is, interpersonal communication can only be correctly done if both persons involved in the communication, understand what it is to be human beings, and share similar qualities of what it means to be humans. It involves acts of trust and openness, as well as a sense of respect and care towards what the other person is talking about.

Nonverbal communication:

The messages we send to each other, in ways that cover the act of word-by-mouth. These actions may be done through the use of our facial features and expressions, arms and hands, the tone of our voice, or even our very appearance can display a certain type of message.

Speech:

Allowing words to make for an understanding as to what people are feeling and expressing. It allows a person to get a direct thought out to another by using their voice to create words that then turn into a sentence, which in turn then turns into a conversation to get a message across.

​"What is spoken or expressed, as in conversation; uttered or written words: seditious speech. A talk or public address, or a written copy of this: The senator gave a speech. The language or dialect of a nation or region: American speech. One's manner or style of speaking: the mayor's mumbling speech. The study of oral communication, speech sounds, and vocal physiology".

Conversation:

Allows however many people to say words back and forth to each other that will equal into meaningful rhythm called conversation. It defines ideas between people, or teams, or groups.

To have a conversation requires at least two people, making it possible to share values and interests of each person. Conversation makes it possible to getting messages across to other people, whether that be an important message or just a simple message. "Strong conversation skills will virtually guarantee that you will be better understood by most people". 

Visual communication:

The type of communication where it involves using your eyes that allow you to read signs, charts, graphs and pictures that have words or phrases and or pictures showing and describing what needs to be portrayed to get information across. Using visual communication allows for people to live daily lives without constantly using your mouth to say things.

A simple example is driving in the car and seeing a red sign that says stop on it, as a driver you are using visual communication to read the sign understand what is being said and stopping your car to not get into an accident. "If carried out properly, visual communication has various benefits.

In the information era and fast-paced society in which time is limited, visual communication help to communicate ideas faster and better. Generally speaking, it offers these benefits: instant conveyance, ease of understanding, cross-cultural communication and generation of enjoyment".

Writing:

What I am forming together right now is called writing where it revolves putting words together to create a sentence that flows into a sentence of meaning. Words are letters that are put together to transform a word that allows the person to understand and follow along with what is being portrayed. Writing requires us to use hands and paper to form the words and letters to create the flow of a message or conversation. Writing can also be done in the form of typing which is what you are seeing here, forming words together on a computer. "'Writing'" is the process of using symbols (letters of the alphabet, punctuation and spaces) to communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form".

Mail:

This is in the form of postage which is in letter or package. When someone uses the post office service requiring them to send a letter that they wrote with pencil and paper or they are using the postage service to send an object to someone out of state. Makes for an easier process to send a loved one messages or objects that do not live next to you or within a 20 min drive distance.

"Material (such as letters and packages) sent or carried in a postal system". For an example a loved one is in the military and is out of state, to let them know what is going on in your life and to also ask how they are doing you send them a letter via the postal service to get that message to them at their location.

Workers at the postal service get the letters and packages across states and countries.

Mass media:

"The means of communication reaching a large number of people such as the population of a nation through certain channels like film, radio, books, music, or television in that the consumer participation stays passive with comparison to interactive network platforms".

The television allows for getting messages to a lot of people in different locations in a matter of minutes making it for the fastest communication skill.

Telecommunication:

A style of communication that allows humans to understand conversation, speech and or visual communication through technology. Whether you are listening through a radio, or using your eyes to watch on a television, or reading words on an email that is Telecommunication.

This type of communication allows for faster and more efficient process for a message to get across to another one from anywhere you are. Location is not a problem for this type of communication.

"The transmission media in telecommunication have evolved through numerous stages of technology, from beacons and other visual signals (such as smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs), to electrical cable and electromagnetic radiation, including light.

Such transmission paths are often divided into communication channels, which afford the advantages of multiplexing multiple concurrent communication sessions. Telecommunication is often used in its plural form".

Organizational communication (communication within organizations):

Defined by structure and planning, making words, phrases, images flow into direction and meaning:
"The construct of organizational communication structure is defined by its 5 main dimensions:
  1. relationships,
  2. entities,
  3. contexts,
  4. configuration,
  5. and temporal stability". 

The purpose is making it easier to work into groups of different culture and thoughts.

Mass communication:

This type of communication involves the process of communicating with known and unknown audiences, through the use of technology or other mediums. There is hardly ever an opportunity for the audience to respond directly to those who sent the message, there is a divide/separation between the sender and receiver.

There are typically four players in the process of mass communication, these players are: those who send the message, the message itself, the medium in which the message is sent, and those who receive the message. These four components come together to be the communication we see and are a part of the most, as the media helps in distributing these messages to the world every day.

Group dynamics (communication within groups):

Allows ideas to be created within a group of people, allowing many minds to think together to form and create meaning. "The interactions that influence the attitudes and behavior of people when they are grouped with others through either choice or accidental circumstances".

Cross-cultural communication (communication across cultures):

This allows different people from different locations, gender, and culture, in a group to feed off of each others ideas to form something much bigger and better. "Culture is a way of thinking and living whereby one picks up a set of attitudes, values, norms and beliefs that are taught and reinforced by other members in the group".

Important figures:
See also:





​

Mass Communications Pictured below: 12 Features of Mass Communications (Continues following Image).
​12 Features of Mass Communications:

Mass communication is a process through which a message is widely circulated among the persons who are far and away from the source. Basically, it is the communication of communicating to mass people. ​Mass communication can be identified through the following characteristics:

1. Wide and Vast Area
Mass communication covers wide and vast area to operate, for example, It covers a country and the whole world too. World is becoming smaller due to operation of mass communication.

2. Heterogeneous Audience
Audience of mass communication are not only large in numbers but also are different in terms of age, sex,  religion, race, culture etc.

3. Distance between Source and Destination
Receivers of mass communication are detached and separated from the original source or sender by a long distance.

4. No Question of Discrimination
Although the receivers of mass communication are subject to heterogeneity but there is no discrimination regarding distribution and delivery of message. There is equal opportunity for all.

5. Professional Communication
The sender of mass communication are professional communicators. They use various mass communication channels to attain their purposes.

6. Absence of Feedback
It is not as like as two way communication system. Absence of features in mass communication which make it unique and give a shape from other shorts of communication.  Feedback is essential to make effective communication. Here in mass communication feedback like other sorts of communication is absent. There may be sometimes poor response from the receiver.

7. Intermediary Channels
In mass communication, various intermediary channels are used to transmit message to the receiver. such channels are radio, television, or newspapers etc.

8. Public Message
Message of such communication are made available to public. The person who has the ability to bear the cost of respective medium such as news paper, radio, television, cinema etc. can receive the message.

9. Use of Machine
Such communication has dependency to the use of technology or machinery. At least one or more than one machine is used in the purpose of mass communication to produce and transmit public message.

10.Self-defined Audience
The audiences of mass communication are independent in respect of receiving message. They have the freedom to choose what paper to read, what movie to see, what program to watch and which voice to listen.

11. Use of Specialists
To make mass communication effective various specialists are there to perform such as news team, film company, machine operators, cinematographer, an editor etc.

12. Rapid Means of Communication
Mass communication is defined to be rapid means of communication. It spreads quickly to the mass audience through reproduction and distribution.

From the above point, it might be seen that all the features of mass communication indicates to the importance of mass communication also. But sometimes, it is costly too. But objectives of mass communication naturally mass worth mentionable.
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Mass Communications  (Wikipedia)

Mass communication is the process of imparting and exchanging information through mass media to large segments of the population. It is usually understood for relating to various forms of media, as its technologies are used for the dissemination of information, of which journalism and advertising are part.

Mass communication differs from other types of communication, such as interpersonal communication and organizational communication, because it focuses on particular resources transmitting information to numerous receivers.

The study of mass communication is chiefly concerned with how the content of mass communication persuades or otherwise affects the behavior, the attitude, opinion, or emotion of the people receiving the information.

Normally, transmission of messages to many recipients at a time is called mass communication. But in a complete sense, mass communication can be understood as the process of extensive circulation of information within regions and across the globe.

Through mass communication, information can be transmitted quickly to many people who generally stay far away from the sources of information. Mass communication is practiced in multiple media, such as: 
In this modern era, mass communication is being used to disperse information at an accelerated rate, often about politics and other charged topics. There are major connections between the media that is being consumed, via mass communication, and our culture, contributing to polarization and dividing people based on consequential issues.

​Field of study:
See also: Models of studying mass communication agenda setting

In social science, mass communication is a sub-field of communication studies. Mass communication is "the process by which a person, group of people or organization creates a message and transmits it through some type of medium to a large, anonymous, heterogeneous audience." This implies that the audience of mass communication is mostly made up of different cultures, behavior, and belief systems. Mass communication is commonly associated with media studies.

In the United States, the study of mass communication is often associated with the practical applications of journalism, television and radio broadcasting, film, public relations, corporate or advertising. With the diversification of media forms, the study of mass communication has extended to include social media and new media, which have stronger feedback models than traditional media sources.

The history of communication stretches from prehistoric forms of art and writing through modern communication methods such as the Internet. Mass communication began when humans could transmit messages from a single source to multiple receivers. Mass communication has moved from theories such as the hypodermic needle model (or magic bullet theory) through more modern theories such as computer-mediated communication.

Types of mass communication:

Advertising:
Main article: Advertising

Advertising, in relation to mass communication is marketing a product or service in a persuasive manner that encourages the audience to buy the product or use the service.

Because advertising generally takes place through some form of mass media, such as television, studying the effects and methods of advertising is relevant to the study of mass communication.

Advertising is the paid, impersonal, one-way marketing of persuasive information from a sponsor. Through mass communication channels, the sponsor promotes the adoption of products or ideas. Advertisers have full control of the message being sent to their audience.

Advertising includes the use of paid, earned, or owned media. Paid media is directly through advertising and various business sponsorship campaigns. Earned media occurs through word of mouth, and online social media posts or trends. Owned media is brand websites and other owned content by the business producing the product.

Journalism:
Main article: Journalism

Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on events for presentation through the media. The study of journalism involves analyzing the dissemination of information to the public through media outlets such as newspapers, news channels, radio stations, television stations.

Alternative journalism deviates from established or dominant types of media in terms of their content, production, or distribution. Alternative journalism utilizes the same media outlets as mainstream journalism, to advocate the interests of those excluded from the mainstream.

Civic journalism (also known as "public journalism") is the idea of integrating journalism into the democratic process. The media not only informs the public, but it also works towards engaging citizens and creating public debate.

Citizen journalism is based upon public citizens actively producing news and information. Citizen journalism deals with the distribution of news by the public, often through the Internet or social media. A 2014 study revealed 40% of participants rely on social media for news and collecting information.
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Public relations:
Main article: Public relations

Public relations is the strategic communication process of providing information to the public in order to present a specific view of a product or organization.

According to Public Relations Society of America, public relations is about influencing and building a relationship between an organization and their publics across various media platforms. 

Public relations differs from advertising in that it is less obtrusive, and aimed at providing a more comprehensive opinion to a large audience in order to shape public opinion. Unlike advertising, public relations professionals only have control until the message is related to media gatekeepers who decide where to pass the information on to the audience.

Social media:
Main article: Social media

Social media, in its modern use, refers to platforms used on both mobile devices and home computers that allow users to interact through the use of words, images, sounds, and video.

Social media includes popular sites such as Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook as well as sites that can aid in business networking such as LinkedIn. The use and importance of social media in communications and public relations has grown drastically throughout the years and is now a staple in advertisements to mass audiences.

For many newer companies and businesses geared towards young people, social media is a tool for advertising purposes and growing the brand. Social Media provides additional ways to connect and reach out to one targeted audience.

Social media platforms have completely changed the way people communicate. Over the past twenty years, social media has drastically changed, with TikTok, and Instagram joining Facebook and Twitter as some of the leading social media platforms in the world. With more platforms targeting younger generations, audiences are getting bigger.

TikTok alone announced that it has over 1 billion active global users, and receives over 18 million views, and has been growing exponentially every year. With content reaching more audencies than ever, brands, companies, and individuals are able to communicate with millions of people all at once.

Social media have introduced new difficulties into relationships. One way this has occurred is through catfishing. The term catfish refers to a person who uses a false online profile on a social media platform. Most commonly, a catfish communicates with another online profile to get them to fall in love with the false persona they created.

The MTV reality show Catfish: The TV Show has brought mainstream attention to this issue. The goal of these episodes is to keep track of people who have fallen in love with someone they interacted with online, but never met in person. As catfishing has become a mainstream term, people have wondered how and why it continues to happen. 

Nev Schulman, host of the show, has said "I think people will always be looking to fall in love. People will always hope for things to get better. For better, or worse, there will always be people who may or may not look to take advantage of that."

Audio media:

Recorded music:

Recordings, developed in the 1870s, became the first non-print form of mass communication.

The invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison in the late 19th century, the graphophone by Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Tainter, and the gramophone by the Victor Talking Machine Company were the first competing mass media forms that brought recorded music to the masses.

Recording changed again in the 1950s with the invention of the LP (long play) vinyl record, then eight track-tapes, followed by vinyl, and cassettes in 1965. Compact discs (CDs) followed and were seen as the biggest invention in recorded arts since Edison.

Nowadays, recorded music is usually listened to using streaming platforms such as Apple Music, Youtube Music, Soundcloud, Spotify, and others becoming the primary sources of listening to music. Even with the progression into digital music, vinyl and cassettes are still extremely popular physical forms of music.

Radio:

Radio is considered the most widely accessible form of mass communication in the world and the medium used to the greatest degree in the United States.

Internet radio has now become increasingly more popular, as radio stations are streaming content through their websites and other applications. Music streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify, have also integrated radio features onto the platform.

Spotify Radio is a feature that allows Spotify to continuously create a playlist for its users with tracks and podcast segments based on any artist or playlist they wish.

Podcasts:

A Podcast is audio file that is recorded and digitally uploaded to an online platform in order to be downloaded and listened to by the general public. Podcasting as a form of mass communication has been rising in popularity over the years. From the 2014 to the year 2019, podcasting has doubled in listeners and has grown by 122%. 

Just like radio and recorded music, podcasts are available to stream on multiple online platforms like Spotify, Youtube, and Apple music, and some are even recorded in front of a live audience and then uploaded, giving the public a chance to listen to their favorite podcast hosts live.

With the introduction of podcasts in the 2000s, people now can share niche interests, news, and conversations to a larger audience than traditional radio.

Convergence:

Convergence refers to the coming together of telecommunications as forms of mass communication in a digital media environment. There is no clear definition of Convergence and its effects. However, it can be viewed through three lenses: technological convergence, cultural convergence, and economic convergence. 

Technological convergence is the action of two or more media companies merging in a digital platform and can lead companies to develop new commodities or become part of new sectors and/or economies. 

Cultural convergence deals with the blending of different beliefs, values, and traditions between groups of people and may occur through the globalization of content. Sex and the City, an American show set in New York City, was viewed internationally and became popular among female workers in Thailand. 

A study on the consumption of YouTube, conducted by the Information Technology Department and Sociology Department at Cornell University, concluded that cultural convergence occurs more frequently in advanced cosmopolitan areas.

Integrated communication:

Integrated Communication refers to the process of bringing together several types of mass communication to function across the mediascape. Integrated communication unifies all mass communication elements, such as social media, publice relations, advertising and more.

This ensures that how a company communicates follows their business goals and stays consistent across all media channels. It values brand loyalty and maintaining the brand identity.

Film and television:

Film:
Main article: Film

The film industry began with the invention of the Kinetoscope by Thomas Edison. His failure to patent it resulted in two brothers, Louis and Auguste Lumiere creating a portable camera that could process film and project images. 

The first public Kinetoscope demonstration took place in 1893. By 1894 the Kinetoscope was a commercial success, with public parlours established around the world.The invention quickly gained notoriety when the Lumiere brothers debuted a series of 60-second clips screened outdoors to a Parisian audience.

Despite the ever-growing popularity of moving images, the Lumiere Brothers did not seek to revolutionize the style of the film, but stuck to documenting daily life in France.

This set the grounds for future film revolutionaries, including George Melies, who sought to create narrative sequences in his films through the use of special effects. The first 30 years of cinema were characterized by the growth and consolidation of an industrial base, the establishment of the narrative form, and refinement of technology.

Television:
Main article: Television

In the 1970s, television began to change to include more complicated and three-dimensional characters and plots. PBS launched in 1970, and was the home for programming that would not be suitable for network television. It operates on donations and little government funding, rather than having commercials.

On January 12, 1971, the sitcom All in the Family premiered on CBS, and covered the issues of the day and portrayed a bigot named Archie Bunker. 

By 1972, the sales of color television sets surpassed that of black-and-white sets. In the 1980s, television became geared towards what has become known as the MTV Generation, with a surge in the number of cable channels. 

Of all the mass media today, television attracts the largest number of viewers. Its audience is greater in size than that of any other media audiences. Since television is able to attract the audiences of all age groups, literate and illiterate and of all the strata of the society, it has an enormous audience.

Photography:
Main article: Photography

Photography plays a role in the field of technology and mass communication by demonstrating facts or reinforcing ideas. Although the photos are altered digitally, it is still considered a proof to expose and communicate. 

Photography establishes the basic roles: 
  • record great historic events,
  • document sociological and journalistic researches
  • and dynamically influences the mobilization of public opinion toward social and legislative reforms.

History of photography:

Camera obscura was one of the first techniques that lead to creating photos. It could create an image on a wall or piece of paper. Joseph Niepce was a French inventor that took the first photo in 1827 that required 8 hours of exposure.

In 1839, Louis Daguerre introduced the daguerreotype that reduced exposure time to about thirty minutes. As the years progressed, so did photography techniques, including creating better image quality, adding color to an image, and reduced exposure time.

Contemporary photography industry:

The modern industry has dramatically changed with the development of digital, as phones and digital cameras have made film-based cameras a niche product. Kodak discontinued making a color film in 1999 and declared Bankruptcy in 2012. Other companies like Fujifilm adapted despite a downturn in sales.

Interactive media:

Video games:
Main article: List of video game genres

Video game genres are a classification assigned to a video game based on its game play rather than a visual or storytelling differences.

A video game genre is defined by a set of game play challenges and are classified independently of when and where the game takes place. Video games have massed a huge audience with the industry grossing over 90 billion dollars in 2021. 

Not only are videos games a channel for mass communication, but so are the online platforms used in part with the game. Streamers now go online and broadcast their games on Twitch and Youtube reaching over 140 million users. 

Ethics in interactive media:

Interactive media is a form of communication technique that refers to services on digital computer-based systems. This requires two or more parties who respond to each other through text, moving images, animation, video, audio, and video games. 

The ethics in interactive media mainly focus on the violence of video games, advertising being influenced in different ways and behavioral targeting.

The violence of video games relates to ethics in interactive media because it brings on aggressive attitude and behavior that impacts the social lives of the people playing these video games. 

Furthermore, behavioral targeting ties into the ethics of interactive media because these websites and apps on our phones contain personal information which allow the owners or the ones running the companies to receive it and use them for themselves. 

Interactive media influences advertising because by society using social media or any websites, we are able to see that there's advertising in everything we view especially when your scrolling through Instagram or those pop up ads that come up on your screen reading an article on your computer.

E-books:
Main article: E-book

eBooks have changed how people read. People are able to download books onto their devices. This allows consumers to track what they read, to annotate, and to search for definitions of words on the internet. 

With e-books in education, the increased demand for mobile access to course materials and eBooks for students corresponds with the increased number of smartphones. E- readers such as the Amazon Kindle have advanced over the years.

Since its launch in 2007, the Kindle has expanded its memory from 4 GB to 8 GB. In addition, the Kindle has added accessories including games, movies, and music.

Majority theories:

Communication researchers have identified several major theories associated with the study of mass communication. Communication theory addresses the processes and mechanisms that allow communication to take place.
  • Cultivation theory, developed by George Gerbner and Marshall McLuhan, discusses the long-term effects of watching television, and hypothesizes that the more television an individual consumes, the more likely that person is to believe the real world is similar to what they have seen on television. Cultivation is closely related to the idea of the mean world syndrome, which asserts people who watch the news frequently are more likely to believe the world is a 'mean' place.
  • Contingency theory informs organizations how to communicate ethically with their publics, especially during crisis.
  • Agenda setting theory centers around the idea that media outlets tell the public "not what to think, but what to think about." Agenda setting hypothesizes that media have the power to influence the public discourse, and tell people what are important issues facing society.
  • The spiral of silence, developed by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, hypothesizes that people are more likely to reveal their opinion in public if they believe that they are of the majority opinion, for fear that revealing an unpopular opinion would subject them to being a social outcast. This theory is relevant to mass communication because it hypothesizes that mass media have the power to shape people's opinions, as well as relay the opinion that is believed to be the majority opinion.
  • Media ecology hypothesizes that individuals are shaped by their interaction with media, and that communication and media profoundly affect how individuals view and interact with their environment.
  • Semiotics considers language to be a system. A system that has many different individual parts, these parts are called signs (words, images, gestures, and situations). The system of language changes over time, but what semiotics does is it analyses a system at a certain place in time.

Issues and complications:

Mass communication had evolved into something that has gone down an unforeseen path where it has become something extremely complicated and has major unintentional repercussions on people.

Theorist such as Neil Postman, George Gerbner and authors such as Nicholas Carr have all written extensive pieces on how the overindulged and reliant have become consumed by mass communication and the mediums it utilizes. Upon this reliance there are many complications and issues that have seeped into an increasingly technical and connected society.  

Attention span:

As the multitude of mass communication outlets increases daily the availability of very niche and broad outlets have also increased. This availability and countless opinions being accessed can lead to a skimming activity where authors such as Nicholas Carr have noticed that they have a shorter attention span and are more prone to only skimming an outlet rather than being attentive.

This habit is very common as the multitude of sources permit us to only take things at face value. Mass communication began as a term covering radio, print, and television but it was coined before the creation of the Internet, or the “Universal Medium”. 

The Internet has taken all the risks and complications of the three aforementioned mediums and has incorporated and built further upon them. The ability to have infinite sources of information has created a Peek-A-Boo World effect where the constant flow and availability of information makes certain events be very popular but quickly fizzle out.

Mean world syndrome:

This method of perception was coined by the communications scholar George Gerbner and is associated with the impact of mass communication on one's thoughts of the world they live in. It was characterized to explain how people who are constantly subjected to the evils of the world, now made readily available through mass communication, have the sentiment that the world is only evil.

Gerbner specifies that context of the violence within a story is also important, it is not the quantity that is the issue, but rather it matters more about how it adds up to tell said story.

This conditioning can provoke a reaction of displeasure with the world as it can alter world views and represents the power and darker side of mass communication. The ability to have any form of information to reach anybody around the world in minutes through the internet has only amplified this lens.  

Mass communications and health of public:

Mass communication is necessary for improving awareness and education surrounding public health issues. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, mass communication has been crucial for educating the general public about precautionary measures needed to combat the spread of illness.

Mass communication methods surrounding the establishment of effective public health programs include news stories, paid media, and social and digital media.

Components for an effective communications campaign, as per the CDC’s requirements include specific individualized training, guidance, and technical assistance. Included in those is a development of a plan for communication, analysis and awareness of key audiences, the development and preliminary testing of messages and materials, selecting communication channels: print, broadcast, or digital, and communication categories: earned, paid, social or digital media.

Along with providing training for the spokesperson, and conducting audience research.

Methods of study:

Communication researchers study communication through various methods that have been verified through repetitive, cumulative processes. Both quantitative and qualitative methods have been used in the study of mass communication.

The main focus of mass communication research is to learn how the content of mass communication affects the attitudes, opinions, emotions, and ultimately behaviors of the people who receive the message.

Several prominent methods of study are as follows:
  • Studying cause and effect relationships in communication can only be done through an experiment. This quantitative method regularly involves exposing participants to various media content and recording their reactions. To show causation, mass communication researchers must isolate the variable they are studying, show that it occurs before the observed effect and that it is the only variable that could cause the observed effect.
  • Survey, another quantitative method, involves asking individuals to respond to a set of questions in order to generalize their responses to a larger population.
  • Content analysis (sometimes known as textual analysis) refers to the process of identifying the categorical properties of a piece of communication, such as a newspaper article, book, television program, film, or broadcast news script. This process allows researchers to see what the content of communication looks like.
  • A qualitative method is known as ethnography allows a researcher to immerse themselves into a culture to observe and record the qualities of communication that exist there.

Professional organizations:

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication is the major membership organization for academics in the field, offering regional and national conferences and refereed publications. It is a non-profit, educational association for educators, students, and media professionals with annual conferences that specialize in education, research, and public services of various facets of journalism and mass communication. 

The American Society of Journalists and Authors is the largest organization of independent nonfiction authors, and offers professional development services: which include benefits, conferences, workshops, and advocacy for the entirety of the freelance and publishing communities to develop adequate ethical standards within this field. 

The National Communication Association is another major professional organization, which aids scholars and researchers within the field by promoting free and ethical communication, and recognizing the study of all forms of communication through inquiry rooted in humanist, social science-based, and aesthetic means. 

Each of these organizations publishes a different refereed academic journal that reflects the research that is being performed in the field of mass communication, and offers resources for researchers and academics within the field.

Notes for Mass Communication:







Intercultural CommunicationsPictured below: Click here: "Intercultural communication takes place whenever individuals or groups from different cultural or linguistic backgrounds share and exchange meaning in a manner that is influenced by their different cultural perceptions and symbol systems, both verbal and non-verbal."
Intercultural communication (IC) is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It describes the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.

In this sense, IC seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate, and perceive the world around them. Intercultural communication focuses on the recognition and respect of those with cultural differences.

The goal is mutual adaptation between two or more distinct cultures which leads to biculturalism/multiculturalism rather than complete assimilation. It promotes the development of cultural sensitivity and allows for empathic understanding across different cultures.

Description:

Intercultural communication is the idea of knowing how to communicate within different parts of the world. By understanding the theories, people are able to understand how certain norms are prevalent in adapting to new cultures.

Intercultural communication uses theories within groups of people to achieve a sense of cultural diversity. This is in the hopes of people being able to learn new things from different cultures. The theories used give people an enhanced perspective on when it is appropriate to act in situations without disrespecting the people within these cultures; it also enhances their perspective on achieving cultural diversity through the ideas of intercultural communication.

Many people in intercultural business communication argue that culture determines how individuals encode messages, what medium they choose for transmitting them, and the way messages are interpreted. 

With regard to intercultural communication proper, it studies situations where people from different cultural backgrounds interact. Aside from language, intercultural communication focuses on social attributes, thought patterns, and the cultures of different groups of people. It also involves understanding the different cultures, languages and customs of people from other countries.

Learning the tools to facilitate cross-cultural interaction is the subject of cultural agility, a term presently used to design a complex set of competencies required to allow an individual or an organization to perform successfully in cross-cultural situations.

Intercultural communication plays a role in social sciences such as anthropology, cultural studies, linguistics, psychology, and communication studies. Intercultural communication is also referred to as the base for international businesses. Several cross-cultural service providers assist with the development of intercultural communication skills.

Research is a major part of the development of intercultural communication skills. Intercultural communication is in a way the 'interaction with speakers of other languages on equal terms and respecting their identities'.

Identity and culture are also studied within the discipline of communication to analyze how globalization influences ways of thinking, beliefs, values, and identity within and between cultural environments.

Intercultural communication scholars approach theory with a dynamic outlook and do not believe culture can be measured nor that cultures share universal attributes. Scholars acknowledge that culture and communication shift along with societal changes and theories should consider the constant shifting and nuances of society.

​The study of intercultural communication requires intercultural understanding. Intercultural understanding is the ability to understand and value cultural differences. Language is an example of an important cultural component that is linked to intercultural understanding.

Theories:

The following types of theories can be distinguished in different strands: focus on effective outcomes, on accommodation or adaption, on identity negotiation and management, on communication networks, on acculturation and adjustment.

Social engineering effective outcomes:
  • Cultural convergence
    • The theory that when two cultures come together, similarities in ideas and aspects will become more prevalent as members of the two cultures get to know one another. In a relatively closed social system, in which communication among members is unrestricted, the system as a whole will tend to converge over time toward a state of greater cultural uniformity. The system will tend to diverge toward diversity when communication is restricted.
  • Communication accommodation theory
    • This theory focuses on linguistic strategies to decrease or increase communicative distances. In relation to linguistics, communication accommodation theory is the idea when two people are speaking to one another, one participant modifies the way they speak to accommodate another person in a given context. This is similar to code-switching in the sense that people are changing their dialects from a given language, to adjust to a different setting for others to understand. Communication accommodation theory seeks to explain and predict why, when, and how people adjust their communicative behavior during social interaction and what social consequences result from these adjustments.
  • Intercultural adaption
    • Intercultural adaptation is the idea that after living in a culture for an extended period of time, people will start to develop the ideas, rules, values, among other themes of that culture. Adaptation theories conclude that in order to adapt, immigrants need to fully engage in changing one's self beliefs to that of the society's majority. To elaborate, for example, while someone lives abroad it is imperative they are ready to change in order to live cohesively with their new culture. By understanding Intercultural competence, we know that people have the understanding of what it takes to thrive in a culture, by following the norms and ideals that are presented. 
    • Intercultural adaptation involves learned communicative competence. Communicative competence is defined as thinking, feeling, and pragmatically behaving in ways defined as appropriate by the dominant mainstream culture. Communication competence is an outcomes based measure conceptualized as functional/operational conformity to environmental criteria such as working conditions. Beyond this, adaptation means "the need to conform" to mainstream "objective reality" and "accepted modes of experience".
    • Cultural adaptation in the process in which individuals are able to maintain stability and reestablish with their environment while in unfamiliar cultural environments. Intercultural adaptation is a two way process, this is between the host culture as well as the individuals outside/home culture. This is based on whether the host culture is willing to adapt, adopt cultural sensitivity, and/or adopt some aspects of the incoming individuals culture. Intercultural adaptation is a two-way process.
  • Co-cultural theory
    • Co-cultural theory is the idea pertaining to a group of people that someone belongs to, with people from different parts of the world sharing characteristics of one another.
    • In its most general form, co-cultural communication refers to interactions among underrepresented and dominant group members. Co-cultures include but are not limited to people of color, women, people with disabilities, gay men and lesbians, and those in the lower social classes. Co-cultural theory, as developed by Mark P. Orbe, looks at the strategic ways in which co-cultural group members communicate with others. In addition, a co-cultural framework provides an explanation for how different persons communicate based on six factors.
  • Cultural Fusion Theory
    • Cultural Fusion theory explains how immigrants can acculturate into the dominant culture they move to. They maintain important aspects of their culture while adopting aspects of the dominant culture. This creates an intercultural identity within an individual, their native identity as well as their new host culture identity.  Identity negotiation or managemen
  • ​Identity management theory
  • Identity negotiation
  • Cultural identity theory
  • Double-swing model

Communication networks:
  • Networks and outgroup communication competence
  • Intracultural versus intercultural networks
  • Networks and acculturation

Acculturation and adjustment:

​Acculturation can be defined as the process of an individual or individuals exchanging or adopting certain culture values and practices that the dominant culture of their location possesses. 

Acculturation differs from assimilation because the people who are adopting new culture habits are still processing some of their original own culture habits. Young Yun Kim has identified three personality traits that could affect someone's cultural adaptation.

These personality traits include openness, strength, and positive. With these personality traits, individuals will be more successful in acculturating than individuals who do not possess these traits. Kim proposes an alternative to acculturation is complete assimilation.
  • Communication acculturation
    • This theory attempts to portray "cross-cultural adaptation as a collaborative effort in which a stranger and the receiving environment are engaged in a joint effort."
  • Anxiety/Uncertainty management
    • When strangers communicate with hosts, they experience uncertainty and anxiety. Strangers need to manage their uncertainty as well as their anxiety in order to be able to communicate effectively with hosts and then to try to develop accurate predictions and explanations for hosts' behaviors.
  • Assimilation, deviance, and alienation states
    • Assimilation and adaption are not permanent outcomes of the adaption process; rather, they are temporary outcomes of the communication process between hosts and immigrants. "Alienation or assimilation, therefore, of a group or an individual, is an outcome of the relationship between deviant behavior and neglectful communication."
  • Assimilation
    • Assimilation is the process of absorbing the traits of the dominant culture to the point where the group that was assimilated becomes indistinguishable from the host culture. Assimilation can be either forced or done voluntarily depending on situations and conditions. Regardless of the situation or the condition, it is very rare to see a minority group replace and or even forget their previous cultural practices.
  • Alienation
    • Alienation frequently refers to someone who is ostracized or withdrawn from other people with whom they would ordinarily be expected to associate with. Hajda, a representative theorist and researcher of social alienation says, "alienation is an individuals feeling of uneasiness or discomfort which reflects his exclusion or self-exclusion from social and cultural participation."

Three perspectives on intercultural communication:

A study on cultural and intercultural communication came up with three perspectives, which are the indigenous approach, cultural approach, and cross-cultural approach.
  • Indigenous approach: trying to understand the meaning of different cultures. The process of passing preserved indigenous knowledge and how that is interpreted 
  • Cultural approach: is similar to the indigenous approach, however, the cultural approach also focuses on the sociocultural context of an individual
  • Cross cultural approaches: focuses on two or more cultures to perceive cross-cultural validity and generalizability. While indigenous and cultural approaches focal point is emics, cross-cultural approaches are ethics.

Other theories:
  • Meaning of meanings theory – "A misunderstanding takes place when people assume a word has a direct connection with its referent. A common past reduces misunderstanding. Definition, metaphor, feedforward, and Basic English are partial linguistic remedies for a lack of shared experience."
  • Face negotiation theory – "Members of collectivistic, high-context cultures have concerns for mutual face and inclusion that lead them to manage conflict with another person by avoiding, obliging, or compromising. Because of concerns for self-face and autonomy, people from individualistic, low-context cultures manage conflict by dominating or through problem solving"
  • Standpoint theory – An individual's experiences, knowledge, and communication behaviors are shaped in large part by the social groups to which they belong. Individuals sometimes view things similarly, but other times have very different views in which they see the world. The ways in which they view the world are shaped by the experiences they have and through the social group they identify themselves to be a part of. "Feminist standpoint theory claims that the social groups to which we belong shape what we know and how we communicate. The theory is derived from the Marxist position that economically oppressed classes can access knowledge unavailable to the socially privileged and can generate distinctive accounts, particularly knowledge about social relations."
  • Stranger theory – At least one of the persons in an intercultural encounter is a stranger. Strangers are a 'hyperaware' of cultural differences and tend to overestimate the effect of cultural identity on the behavior of people in an alien society, while blurring individual distinctions.
  • Feminist genre theory – Evaluates communication by identifying feminist speakers and reframing their speaking qualities as models for women's liberation.
  • Genderlect theory – "Male-female conversation is cross-cultural communication. Masculine and feminine styles of discourse are best viewed as two distinct cultural dialects rather than as inferior or superior ways of speaking. Men's report talk focuses on status and independence. Women's support talk seeks human connection." 
  • Cultural critical studies theory – The theory states that the mass media impose the dominant ideology on the rest of society, and the connotations of words and images are fragments of ideology that perform an unwitting service for the ruling elite.
  • Marxism – Aims to explain class struggle and the basis of social relations through economics.

Authentic intercultural communication:

Authentic intercultural communication is possible. A theory that was found in 1984 and revisited on 1987 explains the importance of truth and intention of getting an understanding. Furthermore, if strategic intent is hidden, there can't be any authentic intercultural communication.

In intercultural communication, there could be miscommunication, and the term is called "misfire." Later on, a theory was founded that has three layers of intercultural communication. The first level is effective communication, second-level miscommunication, and third-level systemically distorted communication. It is difficult to go to the first level due to the speaker's position and the structure.

History of assimilation:

Forced assimilation was very common in the European colonial empires the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Colonial policies regarding religion conversion, the removal of children, the division of community property, and the shifting of gender roles primarily impacted North and South America, Australia, Africa, and Asia. Voluntary assimilation has also been a part of history dating back to the Spanish Inquisition of the late 14th and 15th centuries, when many Muslims and Jews voluntarily converted to Roman Catholicism as a response to religious prosecution while secretly continuing their original practices. Another example is when the Europeans moved to the United States.

Intercultural competence:

Intercultural communication is competent when it accomplishes the objectives in a manner that is appropriate to the context and relationship. Intercultural communication thus needs to bridge the dichotomy between appropriateness and effectiveness: Proper means of intercultural communication leads to a 15% decrease in miscommunication.
  • Appropriateness: Valued rules, norms, and expectations of the relationship are not violated significantly.
  • Effectiveness: Valued goals or rewards (relative to costs and alternatives) are accomplished.

Competent communication is an interaction that is seen as effective in achieving certain rewarding objectives in a way that is also related to the context in which the situation occurs. In other words, it is a conversation with an achievable goal that is used at an appropriate time/location.

Components:

Intercultural communication can be linked with identity, which means the competent communicator is the person who can affirm others' avowed identities. As well as goal attainment is also a focus within intercultural competence and it involves the communicator to convey a sense of communication appropriateness and effectiveness in diverse cultural contexts.

Ethnocentrism plays a role in intercultural communication. The capacity to avoid ethnocentrism is the foundation of intercultural communication competence. Ethnocentrism is the inclination to view one's own group as natural and correct, and all others as aberrant.

People must be aware that to engage and fix intercultural communication there is no easy solution and there is not only one way to do so. Listed below are some of the components of intercultural competence.
  • Context: A judgment that a person is competent is made in both a relational and situational context. This means that competence is not defined as a single attribute, meaning someone could be very strong in one section and only moderately good in another. Situationally speaking competence can be defined differently for different cultures. For example, eye contact shows competence in western cultures whereas, Asian cultures find too much eye contact disrespectful.
  • Appropriateness: This means that one's behaviors are acceptable and proper for the expectations of any given culture.
  • Effectiveness: The behaviors that lead to the desired outcome being achieved.
  • Motivations: This has to do with emotional associations as they communicate interculturally. Feelings which are one's reactions to thoughts and experiences have to do with motivation. Intentions are thoughts that guide one's choices, it is a goal or plan that directs one's behavior. These two things play a part in motivation.

Basic tools for improvement:

The following are ways to improve communication competence:
  • Display of interest: Showing respect and positive regard for the other person.
  • Orientation to knowledge: Terms people use to explain themselves and their perception of the world.
  • Empathy: Behaving in ways that shows one understands the point of view of others
  • Task role behavior: Initiate ideas that encourage problem solving activities.
  • Relational role behavior: Interpersonal harmony and mediation.
  • Tolerance for unknown and ambiguity: The ability to react to new situations with little discomfort.
  • Interaction posture: Responding to others in descriptive, non-judgmental ways. 
  • Patience.
  • Active listening
  • Clarity
​
Important factors:
  • Proficiency in the host culture language: understanding the grammar and vocabulary.
  • Understanding language pragmatics: how to use politeness strategies in making requests and how to avoid giving out too much information.
  • Being sensitive and aware to nonverbal communication patterns in other cultures.
  • Being aware of gestures that may be offensive or mean something different in a host culture rather than one's own culture.
  • Understanding a culture's proximity in physical space and paralinguistic sounds to convey their intended meaning.
  • Mutual understanding with the aim of promoting a future of appreciation, robustness and diversity.

Traits:
Effective communication depends on the informal understandings among the parties involved that are based on the trust developed between them. When trust exists, there is implicit understanding within communication, cultural differences may be overlooked, and problems can be dealt with more easily. The meaning of trust and how it is developed and communicated varies across societies. Similarly, some cultures have a greater propensity to be trusting than others.

The problems in intercultural communication usually come from problems in message transmission and in reception. In communication between people of the same culture, the person who receives the message interprets it based on values, beliefs, and expectations for behavior similar to those of the person who sent the message.

When this happens, the way the message is interpreted by the receiver is likely to be fairly similar to what the speaker intended. However, when the receiver of the message is a person from a different culture, the receiver uses information from his or her culture to interpret the message. The message that the receiver interprets may be very different from what the speaker intended.

Areas of interest:

Cross-cultural business strategies:

Cross-cultural business communication is very helpful in building cultural intelligence through coaching and training in cross-cultural communication management and facilitation, cross-cultural negotiation, multicultural conflict resolution, customer service, business and organizational communication. Cross-cultural understanding is not just for incoming expats.

Cross-cultural understanding begins with those responsible for the project and reaches those delivering the service or content. The ability to communicate, negotiate and effectively work with people from other cultures is vital to international business.

​Management:

Important points to consider:
  • Develop cultural sensitivity.
  • Anticipate the meaning the receiver will get.
  • Careful encoding.
  • Use words, pictures, and gestures.
  • Avoid slang, idioms, regional sayings.
  • Selective transmission.
  • Build relationships, face-to-face if possible.
  • Careful decoding of feedback.
  • Get feedback from multiple parties.
  • Improve listening and observation skills.
  • Follow-up actions.

Facilitation:

There is a connection between a person's personality traits and the ability to adapt to the host-country's environment—including the ability to communicate within that environment.

Two key personality traits are openness and resilience. Openness includes traits such as tolerance for ambiguity, extroversion and introversion, and open-mindedness. Resilience, on the other hand, includes having an internal locus of control, persistence, tolerance for ambiguity, and resourcefulness.

These factors, combined with the person's cultural and racial identity and level of liberalism, comprise that person's potential for adaptation.

Miscommunication in a Business Setting:

In a business environment, communication is vital, and there could be many instances where there could be miscommunication. Globalization is a significant factor in intercultural communication and affects business environments.

In a business setting, it could be more difficult to communicate due to different ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Due to globalization, more employees have negative emotions in a business environment. The reason why one gets negative feelings is because of miscommunication.

One study done entails the communication between non-native English speaking and native English speaking people in the United States. The study showed that, in a business environment, non-native English speakers and native English speakers had similar experiences in the workplace. Although native English speakers tried to breakdown the miscommunication, non-native English speakers were offended by the terms they used.

Cultural Perceptions:

There are common conceptualizations of attributes that define collectivistic and individualistic cultures. Operationalizing the perceptions of cultural identities works under the guise that cultures are static and homogeneous, when in fact cultures within nations are multi-ethnic and individuals show high variation in how cultural differences are internalized and expressed.

Globalization:

Globalization plays a central role in theorizing for mass communication, media, and cultural communication studies. Intercultural communication scholars emphasize that globalization emerged from the increasing diversity of cultures throughout the world and thrives with the removal of cultural barriers. 

The notion of nationality, or the construction of national space, is understood to emerge dialectically through communication and globalization.

The Intercultural Praxis Model by Kathryn Sorrells, Ph.D. shows us how to navigate through the complexities of cultural differences along with power differences. This model will help you understand who you are as an individual, and how you can better communicate with others that may be different from you.

In order to continue living in a globalized society one can use this Praxis model to understand cultural differences (based on race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, etc.) within the institutional and historical systems of power. Intercultural Communication Praxis Model requires us to respond to someone who comes from a different culture than us, in the most open way we can.

The media are influential in what we think of other cultures and what we think about our own selves. However it is important, we educate ourselves, and learn how to communicate with others through Sorrells' Praxis Model.

Sorrells’ process is made up of six points of entry in navigating intercultural spaces, including:
  1. inquiry,
  2. framing,
  3. positioning,
  4. dialogue,
  5. reflection,
  6. and action.

Inquiry, as the first step of the Intercultural Praxis Model, is an overall interest in learning about and understanding individuals with different cultural backgrounds and world-views, while challenging one's own perceptions.

Framing, then, is the awareness of “local and global contexts that shape intercultural interactions;” thus, the ability to shift between the micro, meso, and macro frames.

Positioning is the consideration of one's place in the world compared to others, and how this position might influence both world-views and certain privileges. Dialogue is the turning point of the process during which further understanding of differences and possible tensions develops through experience and engagement with cultures outside of one's own.

Next, reflection allows for one to learn through introspection the values of those differences, as well as enables action within the world “in meaningful, effective, and responsible ways." This finally leads to action, which aims to create a more conscious world by working toward social justice and peace among different cultures.

As Sorrells argues, “In the context of globalization, [intercultural praxis] … offers us a process of critical, reflective thinking and acting that enables us to navigate … intercultural spaces we inhabit interpersonally, communally, and globally."

Interdisciplinary orientation:

Cross-cultural communication endeavors to bring together such relatively unrelated areas as cultural anthropology and established areas of communication. Its core is to establish and understand how people from different cultures communicate with each other. Its charge is to also produce some guidelines with which people from different cultures can better communicate with each other.

Cross-cultural communication, as with many scholarly fields, is a combination of many other fields. These fields include anthropology, cultural studies, psychology and communication. The field has also moved both toward the treatment of interethnic relations, and toward the study of communication strategies used by co-cultural populations, i.e., communication strategies used to deal with majority or mainstream populations.

The study of languages other than one's own can serve not only to help one understand what we as humans have in common, but also to assist in the understanding of the diversity which underlines our languages' methods of constructing and organizing knowledge.

Such understanding has profound implications with respect to developing a critical awareness of social relationships. Understanding social relationships and the way other cultures work is the groundwork of successful globalization business affairs.

Language socialization can be broadly defined as “an investigation of how language both presupposes and creates anew, social relations in cultural context”. It is imperative that the speaker understands the grammar of a language, as well as how elements of language are socially situated in order to reach communicative competence.

Human experience is culturally relevant, so elements of language are also culturally relevant. 

One must carefully consider semiotics and the evaluation of sign systems to compare cross-cultural norms of communication.  There are several potential problems that come with language socialization, however. Sometimes people can overgeneralize or label cultures with stereotypical and subjective characterizations. 

Another primary concern with documenting alternative cultural norms revolves around the fact that no social actor uses language in ways that perfectly match normative characterizations.  A methodology for investigating how an individual uses language and other semiotic activity to create and use new models of conduct and how this varies from the cultural norm should be incorporated into the study of language socialization.

Verbal communication:

Verbal intercultural communication techniques improve speakers' or listeners' capacity for speech production or comprehension. Depending on the communication situation, the plans could either be formal or informal. Verbal communication consists of messages being sent and received continuously with the speaker and the listener, it is focused on the way messages are portrayed.

Verbal communication is based on language and use of expression, the tone in which the sender of the message relays the communication can determine how the message is received and in what context.

Factors that affect verbal communication:
  • Tone of voice
  • Use of descriptive words
  • Emphasis on certain phrases
  • Volume of voice
  • Practice active listening

The way a message is received is dependent on these factors as they give a greater interpretation for the receiver as to what is meant by the message. By emphasizing a certain phrase with the tone of voice, this indicates that it is important and should be focused more on.

Along with these attributes, verbal communication is also accompanied with non-verbal cues. These cues make the message clearer and give the listener an indication of what way the information should be received.

Example of non-verbal cues:
  • Facial expressions
  • Hand gestures
  • Use of objects
  • Body movement

In terms of intercultural communication there are language barriers which are effected by verbal forms of communication. In this instance there is opportunity for miscommunication between two or more parties. 

Other barriers that contribute to miscommunication would be the type of words chosen in conversation. Due to different cultures there are different meaning in vocabulary chosen, this allows for a message between the sender and receiver to be misconstrued.

Nonverbal communication:

Nonverbal communication refers to gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, eye contact (or lack thereof), body language, posture, and other ways people can communicate without using language. 

Minor variations in body language, speech rhythms, and punctuality often cause differing interpretations of the situation among cross-cultural parties. Kinesic behavior is communication through body movement—e.g., posture, gestures, facial expressions and eye contact.

The meaning of such behavior varies across countries. Clothing and the way people dress is used as a form of nonverbal communication.

Object language or material culture refers to how people communicate through material artifacts—e.g., architecture, office design and furniture, clothing, cars, cosmetics, and time.

In monochronic cultures, time is experienced linearly and as something to be spent, saved, made up, or wasted. Time orders life, and people tend to concentrate on one thing at a time. In polychronic cultures, people tolerate many things happening simultaneously and emphasize involvement with people. In these cultures, people may be highly distractible, focus on several things at once, and change plans often.

Occulesics are a form of kinesics that includes eye contact and the use of the eyes to convey messages. Proxemics concern the influence of proximity and space on communication (e.g., in terms of personal space and in terms of office layout). For example, space communicates power in the US and Germany.

Paralanguage refers to how something is said, rather than the content of what is said—e.g., rate of speech, tone and inflection of voice, other noises, laughing, yawning, and silence.

Nonverbal communication has been shown to account for between 65% and 93% of interpreted communication. Minor variations in body language, speech rhythms, and punctuality often cause mistrust and misperception of the situation among cross-cultural parties.

This is where nonverbal communication can cause problems with intercultural communication. Misunderstandings with nonverbal communication can lead to miscommunication and insults with cultural differences. For example, a handshake in one culture may be recognized as appropriate, whereas another culture may recognize it as rude or inappropriate.

See also:







Information and Communications Technology (ICT)Pictured below: Information technology banner of internet, data storage and communication concept. Computer, laptop, mobile phone and tablet network with social media, web security and cloud computing linear icon — Vector by Seamartini
Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computers, as well as necessary enterprise software, middleware, storage and audiovisual, that enable users to access, store, transmit, understand and manipulate information.

ICT is also used to refer to the convergence of audiovisuals and telephone networks with computer networks through a single cabling or link system.

There are large economic incentives to merge the telephone networks with the computer network system using a single unified system of cabling, signal distribution, and management.

ICT is an umbrella term that includes any communication device, encompassing radio, television, cell phones, computer and network hardware, satellite systems and so on, as well as the various services and appliances with them such as video conferencing and distance learning. ICT also includes analog technology, such as paper communication, and any mode that transmits communication.

ICT is a broad subject and the concepts are evolving. It covers any product that will store, retrieve, manipulate, transmit, or receive information electronically in a digital form (e.g., personal computers including smartphones, digital television, email, or robots). 

Skills Framework for the Information Age is one of many models for describing and managing competencies for ICT professionals for the 21st century.

​Etymology:

The phrase "information and communication technologies" has been used by academic researchers since the 1980s. The abbreviation "ICT" became popular after it was used in a report to the UK government by Dennis Stevenson in 1997, and then in the revised National Curriculum for England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2000.

However, in 2012, the Royal Society recommended that the use of the term "ICT" should be discontinued in British schools "as it has attracted too many negative connotations". From 2014, the National Curriculum has used the word computing, which reflects the addition of computer programming into the curriculum.

Variations of the phrase have spread worldwide. The United Nations has created a "United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force" and an internal "Office of Information and Communications Technology".

Monetisation:

The money spent on IT worldwide has been estimated as US$3.8 trillion in 2017 and has been growing at less than 5% per year since 2009. The estimate 2018 growth of the entire ICT is 5%. The biggest growth of 16% is expected in the area of new technologies (IoT, Robotics, AR/VR, and AI).

The 2014 IT budget of the US federal government was nearly $82 billion. IT costs, as a percentage of corporate revenue, have grown 50% since 2002, putting a strain on IT budgets.

When looking at current companies' IT budgets, 75% are recurrent costs, used to "keep the lights on" in the IT department, and 25% are the cost of new initiatives for technology development.

The average IT budget has the following breakdown:
  • 31% personnel costs (internal)
  • 29% software costs (external/purchasing category)
  • 26% hardware costs (external/purchasing category)
  • 14% costs of external service providers (external/services).

The estimate of money to be spent in 2022 is just over US$6 trillion.

Technological capacity:

The world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1986 to 15.8 in 1993, over 54.5 in 2000, and to 295 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007, and some 5 zetta bytes in 2014. 

This is the informational equivalent to 1.25 stacks of CD-ROM from the earth to the moon in 2007, and the equivalent of 4,500 stacks of printed books from the earth to the sun in 2014.

The world's technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks was 432 exabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 715 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1993, 1.2 (optimally compressed) zettabytes in 2000, and 1.9 zettabytes in 2007. 

The world's effective capacity to exchange information through two-way telecommunication networks was 281 petabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 471 petabytes in 1993, 2.2 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2000, 65 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007, and some 100 exabytes in 2014. 

The world's technological capacity to compute information with humanly guided general-purpose computers grew from 3.0 × 10^8 MIPS in 1986, to 6.4 x 10^12 MIPS in 2007.

​ICT sector in the OECD:

The following is a list of OECD countries by share of ICT sector in total value added in 2013:
​ICT Development Index:

The ICT Development Index ranks and compares the level of ICT use and access across the various countries around the world. In 2014 ITU (International Telecommunication Union) released the latest rankings of the IDI, with Denmark attaining the top spot, followed by South Korea.

The top 30 countries in the rankings include most high-income countries where the quality of life is higher than average, which includes countries from Europe and other regions such as "Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Japan, Macao (China), New Zealand, Singapore, and the United States; almost all countries surveyed improved their IDI ranking this year."

The WSIS process and ICT development goals:

On 21 December 2001, the United Nations General Assembly approved Resolution 56/183, endorsing the holding of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing today's information society. 

According to this resolution, the General Assembly related the Summit to the United Nations Millennium Declaration's goal of implementing ICT to achieve Millennium Development Goals. It also emphasized a multi-stakeholder approach to achieve these goals, using all stakeholders including civil society and the private sector, in addition to governments.

To help anchor and expand ICT to every habitable part of the world, "2015 is the deadline for achievements of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which global leaders agreed upon in the year 2000."

In education:

There is evidence that, to be effective in education, ICT must be fully integrated into the pedagogy. Specifically, when teaching literacy and math, using ICT in combination with Writing to Learn  produces better results than traditional methods alone or ICT alone. 

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), a division of the United Nations, has made integrating ICT into education as part of its efforts to ensure equity and access to education.

The following, which was taken directly from a UNESCO publication on educational ICT, explains the organization's position on the initiative.

Information and Communication Technology can contribute to universal access to education, equity in education, the delivery of quality learning and teaching, teachers' professional development and more efficient education management, governance, and administration. 

UNESCO takes a holistic and comprehensive approach to promote ICT in education. Access, inclusion, and quality are among the main challenges they can address. The Organization's Intersectoral Platform for ICT in education focuses on these issues through the joint work of three of its sectors: Communication & Information, Education and Science.

​Despite the power of computers to enhance and reform teaching and learning practices, improper implementation is a widespread issue beyond the reach of increased funding and technological advances with little evidence that teachers and tutors are properly integrating ICT into everyday learning.

Intrinsic barriers such as a belief in more traditional teaching practices and individual attitudes towards computers in education as well as the teachers own comfort with computers and their ability to use them all as result in varying effectiveness in the integration of ICT in the classroom. 

Mobile learning for refugees:
Main article: Mobile learning for refugees

School environments play an important role in facilitating language learning. However, language and literacy barriers are obstacles preventing refugees from accessing and attending school, especially outside camp settings.

Mobile-assisted language learning apps are key tools for language learning. Mobile solutions can provide support for refugees’ language and literacy challenges in three main areas: literacy development, foreign language learning and translations.

​Mobile technology is relevant because communicative practice is a key asset for refugees and immigrants as they immerse themselves in a new language and a new society. Well-designed mobile language learning activities connect refugees with mainstream cultures, helping them learn in authentic contexts.

For Developing Countries:
​​In health care:

Applications of ICTs in health care include:
In science:

Applications of ICTs in science, research and development, and academia include:
Models of access to ICT:

Scholar Mark Warschauer defines a “models of access” framework for analyzing ICT accessibility. In the second chapter of his book, Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide, he describes three models of access to ICTs: devices, conduits, and literacy. 

Devices and conduits are the most common descriptors for access to ICTs, but they are insufficient for meaningful access to ICTs without third model of access, literacy.

Combined, these three models roughly incorporate all twelve of the criteria of “Real Access” to ICT use, conceptualized by a non-profit organization called Bridges.org in 2005:[40]
  1. Physical access to technology
  2. Appropriateness of technology
  3. Affordability of technology and technology use
  4. Human capacity and training
  5. Locally relevant content, applications, and services
  6. Integration into daily routines
  7. Socio-cultural factors
  8. Trust in technology
  9. Local economic environment
  10. Macro-economic environment
  11. Legal and regulatory framework
  12. Political will and public support

Devices:

The most straightforward model of access for ICT in Warschauer’s theory is devices. 

In this model, access is defined most simply as the ownership of a device such as a phone or computer. 

Warschauer identifies many flaws with this model, including its inability to account for additional costs of ownership such as software, access to telecommunications, knowledge gaps surrounding computer use, and the role of government regulation in some countries. 

Therefore, Warschauer argues that considering only devices understates the magnitude of digital inequality. For example, the Pew Research Center notes that 96% of Americans own a smartphone, although most scholars in this field would contend that comprehensive access to ICT in the United States is likely much lower than that.

Conduits:

A conduit requires a connection to a supply line, which for ICT could be a telephone line or Internet line. Accessing the supply requires investment in the proper infrastructure from a commercial company or local government and recurring payments from the user once the line is set up. For this reason, conduits usually divide people based on their geographic locations.

As a Pew Research Center poll reports, rural Americans are 12% less likely to have broadband access than other Americans, thereby making them less likely to own the devices. Additionally, these costs can be prohibitive to lower-income families accessing ICTs.

These difficulties have led to a shift toward mobile technology; fewer people are purchasing broadband connection and are instead relying on their smartphones for Internet access, which can be found for free at public places such as libraries. 

Indeed, smartphones are on the rise, with 37% of Americans using smartphones as their primary medium for internet access and 96% of Americans owning a smartphone.

Literacy:

In 1981, Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole studied a tribe in Liberia, the Vai people, who have their own local script. Since about half of those literate in Vai have never had formal schooling, Scribner and Cole were able to test more than 1,000 subjects to measure the mental capabilities of literates over non-literates. 

This research, which they laid out in their book The Psychology of Literacy, allowed them to study whether the literacy divide exists at the individual level. Warschauer applied their literacy research to ICT literacy as part of his model of ICT access.

Scribner and Cole found no generalizable cognitive benefits from Vai literacy; instead, individual differences on cognitive tasks were due to other factors, like schooling or living environment. 

The results suggested that there is “no single construct of literacy that divides people into two cognitive camps; [...] rather, there are gradations and types of literacies, with a range of benefits closely related to the specific functions of literacy practices.” Furthermore, literacy and social development are intertwined, and the literacy divide does not exist on the individual level.

Warschauer draws on Scribner and Cole’s research to argue that ICT literacy functions similarly to literacy acquisition, as they both require resources rather than a narrow cognitive skill. Conclusions about literacy serve as the basis for a theory of the digital divide and ICT access, as detailed below:

There is not just one type of ICT access, but many types. The meaning and value of access varies in particular social contexts. Access exists in gradations rather than in a bipolar opposition.

Computer and Internet use brings no automatic benefit outside of its particular functions. ICT use is a social practice, involving access to physical artifacts, content, skills, and social support. And acquisition of ICT access is a matter not only of education but also of power.

Therefore, Warschauer concludes that access to ICT cannot rest on devices or conduits alone; it must also engage physical, digital, human, and social resources. Each of these categories of resources have iterative relations with ICT use. If ICT is used well, it can promote these resources, but if it is used poorly, it can contribute to a cycle of underdevelopment and exclusion.

Environmental impact of ICTs:
See also: 
Progress during the century:

In the early 21st century a rapid development of ICT services and electronical devices took place, in which the internet servers multiplied by a factor of 1000 to 395 million and its still increasing.

This increase can be explained by moores law, which states, that the development of ICT increases every year by 16-20%, so it will double in numbers every four to five years.

Alongside this development and the high investments in increasing demand for ICT capable products, a high environmental impact came with it. Software and Hardware development as well as production causing already in 2008 the same amount of CO2-emissions as global air travels.

There are two sides of ICT, the positive environmental possibilities and the shadow side:
  • On the positive side, studies proved, that for instance in the OECD countries a reduction of 0.235% energy use is caused by an increase in ICT capital by 1%. 
  • On the other side the more digitization is happening, the more energy is consumed, that means for OECD countries 1% increase in internet users causes a raise of 0.026% electricity consumption per capita and for emerging countries the impact is more than 4 times as high.

Currently the scientific forecasts are showing an increase up to 30700 TWh in 2030 which is 20 times more than it was in 2010.

Implication:

To tackle the environmental issues of ICT, the EU commission plans proper monitoring and reporting of the GHG emissions of different ICT platforms, countries and infrastructure in general.

Further the establishment of international norms for reporting and compliance are promoted to foster transparency in this sector.

Moreover it is suggested by scientists to make more ICT investments to exploit the potentials of ICT to alleviate CO2-emissions in general, and to implement a more effective coordination of ICT, energy and growth policies. 

Consequently, applying the principle of the coase theorem makes sense. It recommends to make investments there, where the marginal avoidance costs of emissions are the lowest, therefore in the developing countries with comparatively lower technological standards and policies as high-tech countries. With these measures, ICT can reduce environmental damage from economic growth and energy consumption by facilitating communication and infrastructure.

In problem-solving:

ICTs could also be used to address environmental issues, including climate change, in various ways, including ways beyond education.

See also:







Interpersonal Communications
including a List of the Many Forms of Interpersonal Communications Click on image below to order these eBooks:
​Interpersonal communication is an exchange of information between two or more people. It is also an area of research that seeks to understand how humans use verbal and nonverbal cues to accomplish a number of personal and relational goals.

Interpersonal communication research addresses at least six categories of inquiry:
  1. how humans adjust and adapt their verbal communication and nonverbal communication during face-to-face communication;
  2. how messages are produced;
  3. how uncertainty influences behavior and information-management strategies;
  4. deceptive communication;
  5. relational dialectics;
  6. social interactions that are mediated by technology.

A large number of scholars have described their work as research into interpersonal communication. There is considerable variety in how this area of study is conceptually and operationally defined. 

Researchers in interpersonal communication come from many different research paradigms and theoretical traditions, adding to the complexity of the field. 

Interpersonal communication is often defined as communication that takes place between people who are interdependent and have some knowledge of each other: for example, communication between a son and his father, an employer and an employee, two sisters, a teacher and a student, two lovers, two friends, and so on.

Although interpersonal communication is most often between pairs of individuals, it can also be extended to include small intimate groups such as the family. Interpersonal communication can take place in face-to-face settings, as well as through platforms such as social media. 

The study of interpersonal communication addresses a variety of elements and uses both quantitative/social scientific methods and qualitative methods.

There is growing interest in biological and physiological perspectives on interpersonal communication. Some of the concepts explored follow:
  • personality,
  • knowledge structures and social interaction,
  • language,
  • nonverbal signals,
  • emotional experience and expression,
  • supportive communication,
  • social networks and the life of relationships,
  • influence,
  • conflict,
  • computer-mediated communication,
  • interpersonal skills,
  • interpersonal communication in the workplace,
  • intercultural perspectives on interpersonal communication,
  • escalation and de-escalation of romantic or platonic relationships,
  • interpersonal communication and healthcare,
  • family relationships,
  • and communication across the life span.

​Foundation of interpersonal communication:

Interpersonal communication process principles:

​Human communication is a complex process with many components. And there are principles of communication that guide our understanding of communication.

Communication is transactional:

Communication is a transactional communication—that is, a dynamic process created by the participants through their interaction with each other. In short, communication is an interactive process in which both parties need to participate. A metaphor is dancing. It is more like a process in which you and your partner are constantly running in and working together. Two perfect dancers do not necessarily guarantee the absolute success of a dance, but the perfect cooperation of two not-so-excellent dancers can guarantee a successful dance.

Communication can be intentional and unintentional:

Some communication is intentional and deliberate, for example, before you ask your boss to give you a promotion or a raise, you will do a lot of mental building and practice many times how to talk to your boss so that it won't cause embarrassment.

But at the same time, communication can also be unintentional. For example, you are complaining about your unfortunate experience today in the corner of the school, but it happens that your friend overhears your complaint. Even if you don't want others to know about your experience from the bottom of your heart, but unintentionally, this also delivers message and forms communication.

Communication Is Irreversible:

The process of Interpersonal Communication is irreversible, you can wish you hadn't said something and you can apologize for something you said and later regret - but you can't take it back.

Communication Is Unrepeatable:

Unrepeatability arises from the fact that an act of communication can never be duplicated. The reason is that the audience may be different, our mood at the time may be different, or our relationship may be in a different place. In person communication can be invigorating and is often memorable when people are engaged and in the moment.

Theories:

Uncertainty reduction theory:
Main article: Uncertainty reduction theory

Uncertainty reduction theory, developed in 1975, comes from the socio-psychological perspective. It addresses the basic process of how we gain knowledge about other people.

According to the theory, people have difficulty with uncertainty. You are not sure what is going to come next, so you are uncertain how you should prepare for the upcoming event. To help predict behavior, they are motivated to seek information about the people with whom they interact.

The theory argues that strangers, upon meeting, go through specific steps and checkpoints in order to reduce uncertainty about each other and form an idea of whether they like or dislike each other. During communication, individuals are making plans to accomplish their goals.

At highly uncertain moments, they will become more vigilant and rely more on data available in the situation. A reduction in certainty leads to a loss of confidence in the initial plan, such that the individual may make contingency plans. The theory also says that higher levels of uncertainty create distance between people and that non-verbal expressiveness tends to help reduce uncertainty.

Constructs include the level of uncertainty, the nature of the relationship and ways to reduce uncertainty. Underlying assumptions include the idea that an individual will cognitively process the existence of uncertainty and take steps to reduce it. The boundary conditions for this theory are that there must be some kind of trigger, usually based on the social situation, and internal cognitive process.

According to the theory, we reduce uncertainty in three ways:
  1. Passive strategies: observing the person.
  2. Active strategies: asking others about the person or looking up information
  3. Interactive strategies: asking questions, self-disclosure.

Uncertainty reduction theory is most applicable to the initial interaction context. Scholars have extended the uncertainty framework with theories that describe uncertainty management and motivated information management. 

These extended theories give a broader conceptualization of how uncertainty operates in interpersonal communication as well as how uncertainty motivates individuals to seek information. The theory has also been applied to romantic relationships.

Social exchange theory:
Main article: Social exchange theory

Social exchange theory falls under the symbolic interaction perspective. The theory describes, explains, and predicts when and why people reveal certain information about themselves to others. The social exchange theory uses Thibaut and Kelley's (1959) theory of interdependence.

This theory states that "relationships grow, develop, deteriorate, and dissolve as a consequence of an unfolding social-exchange process, which may be conceived as a bartering of rewards and costs both between the partners and between members of the partnership and others". 

Social exchange theory argues that the major force in interpersonal relationships is the satisfaction of both people's self-interest.

According to the theory, human interaction is analogous to an economic transaction, in that an individual may seek to maximize rewards and minimize costs. Actions such as revealing information about oneself will occur when the cost-reward ratio is acceptable. As long as rewards continue to outweigh costs, a pair of individuals will become increasingly intimate by sharing more and more personal information.

The constructs of this theory include disclosure, relational expectations, and perceived rewards or costs in the relationship. In the context of marriage, the rewards within the relationship include emotional security and sexual fulfillment. 

Based on this theory Levinger argued that marriages will fail when the rewards of the relationship lessen, the barriers against leaving the spouse are weak, and the alternatives outside of the relationship are appealing.

Symbolic interaction:
Main article: Symbolic interaction

Symbolic interaction comes from the socio-cultural perspective in that it relies on the creation of shared meaning through interactions with others. This theory focuses on the ways in which people form meaning and structure in society through interactions. People are motivated to act based on the meanings they assign to people, things, and events.

Symbolic interaction considers the world to be made up of social objects that are named and have socially determined meanings. When people interact over time, they come to shared meaning for certain terms and actions and thus come to understand events in particular ways.

There are three main concepts in this theory: society, self, and mind.

Society: Social acts (which create meaning) involve an initial gesture from one individual, a response to that gesture from another, and a result.

Self: Self-image comes from interaction with others. A person makes sense of the world and defines their "self" through social interactions that indicate the value of the self.

Mind: The ability to use significant symbols makes thinking possible. One defines objects in terms of how one might react to them.

Constructs for this theory include creation of meaning, social norms, human interactions, and signs and symbols. An underlying assumption for this theory is that meaning and social reality are shaped from interactions with others and that some kind of shared meaning is reached.

For this to be effective, there must be numerous people communicating and interacting and thus assigning meaning to situations or objects.

Relational dialectics theory:
Main article: Relational dialectics

The dialectical approach to interpersonal communication revolves around the notions of contradiction, change, praxis, and totality, with influences from Hegel, Marx, and Bakhtin. The dialectical approach searches for understanding by exploring the tension of opposing arguments.

Both internal and external dialectics function in interpersonal relationships, including separateness vs. connection, novelty vs. predictability, and openness vs. closedness.

Relational dialectics theory deals with how meaning emerges from the interplay of competing discourses. A discourse is a system of meaning that helps us to understand the underlying sense of a particular utterance.

Communication between two parties invokes multiple systems of meaning that are in tension with each other. Relational dialectics theory argues that these tensions are both inevitable and necessary. The meanings intended in our conversations may be interpreted, understood, or misunderstood. 

In this theory, all discourse, including internal discourse, has competing properties that relational dialectics theory aims to analyze.

The three relational dialectics:

Relational dialectics theory assumes three different types of tensions in relationships: connectedness vs. separateness, certainty vs. uncertainty, and openness vs. closedness. [26]

Connectedness vs. separateness:

Most individuals naturally desire that their interpersonal relationships involve close connections. However, relational dialectics theory argues that no relationship can be enduring unless the individuals involved within it have opportunities to be alone. An excessive reliance on a specific relationship can result in the loss of individual identity.

Certainty vs. uncertainty:

Individuals desire a sense of assurance and predictability in their interpersonal relationships. However, they also desire variety, spontaneity and mystery in their relationships. Like repetitive work, relationships that become bland and monotonous are undesirable.

Openness vs. closedness:

In close interpersonal relationships, individuals may feel a pressure to reveal personal information, as described in social penetration theory. This pressure may be opposed by a natural desire to retain some level of personal privacy.

Coordinated management of meaning:
Main article: Coordinated management of meaning

The coordinated management of meaning theory assumes that two individuals engaging in an interaction each construct their own interpretation and perception of what a conversation means, then negotiate a common meaning by coordinating with each other. This coordination involves the individuals establishing rules for creating and interpreting meaning.

The rules that individuals can apply in any communicative situation include constitutive and regulative rules.

Constitutive rules are "rules of meaning used by communicators to interpret or understand an event or message".

Regulative rules are "rules of action used to determine how to respond or behave".

When one individual sends a message to the other the recipient must interpret the meaning of the interaction. Often, this can be done almost instantaneously because the interpretation rules that apply to the situation are immediate and simple.

However, there are times when the interpretation of the ‘rules’ for an interaction is not obvious. This depends on each communicator's previous beliefs and perceptions within a given context and how they can apply these rules to the current interaction.

These "rules" of meaning "are always chosen within a context", and the context of a situation can be used as a framework for interpreting specific events. Contexts that an individual can refer to when interpreting a communicative event include the relationship context, the episode context, the self-concept context, and the archetype context.

Relationship context:

This context assumes that there are mutual expectations between individuals who are members of a group.

Episode context:

This context refers to a specific event in which the communicative act is taking place.

Self-concept context:

This context involves one's sense of self, or an individual's personal ‘definition’ of him/herself.

Archetype context:

This context is essentially one's image of what his or her belief consists of regarding general truths within communicative exchanges.

Pearce and Cronen argue that these specific contexts exist in a hierarchical fashion. This theory assumes that the bottom level of this hierarchy consists of the communicative act. The relationship context is next in the hierarchy, then the episode context, followed by the self-concept context, and finally the archetype context.

Social penetration theory:
Main article: Social penetration theory

Social penetration theory is a conceptual framework that describes the development of interpersonal relationships. This theory refers to the reciprocity of behaviors between two people who are in the process of developing a relationship. These behaviors can include verbal/nonverbal exchange, interpersonal perceptions, and interactions with the environment.

The behaviors vary based on the different levels of intimacy in the relationship.

"Onion theory": This theory is often known as the "onion theory". This analogy suggests that like an onion, personalities have "layers". The outside layer is what the public sees, and the core is one's private self.

When a relationship begins to develop, the individuals in the relationship may undergo a process of self-disclosure, progressing more deeply into the "layers".

Social penetration theory recognizes five stages: orientation, exploratory affective exchange, affective exchange, stable exchange, and de-penetration. Not all of these stages happen in every relationship:
  1. Orientation stage: strangers exchange only impersonal information and are very cautious in their interactions.
  2. Exploratory affective stage: communication styles become somewhat more friendly and relaxed.
  3. Affective exchange: there is a high amount of open communication between individuals. These relationships typically consist of close friends or even romantic or platonic partners.
  4. Stable exchange: continued open and personal types of interaction.
  5. De-penetration: when the relationship's costs exceed its benefits there may be a withdrawal of information, ultimately leading to the end of the relationship.

If the early stages take place too quickly, this may be negative for the progress of the relationship:
  • Example: Jenny and Justin met for the first time at a wedding. Within minutes Jenny starts to tell Justin about her terrible ex-boyfriend and the misery he put her through. This is information that is typically shared at stage three or four, not stage one. Justin finds this off-putting, reducing the chances of a future relationship.

Social penetration theory predicts that people decide to risk self-disclosure based on the costs and rewards of sharing information, which are affected by factors such as relational outcome, relational stability, and relational satisfaction.

The depth of penetration is the degree of intimacy a relationship has accomplished, measured relative to the stages above. Griffin defines depth as "the degree of disclosure in a specific area of an individual's life" and breadth as "the range of areas in an individual's life over which disclosure takes place."

The theory explains the following key observations:
  1. Peripheral items are exchanged more frequently and sooner than private information;
  2. Self-disclosure is reciprocal, especially in the early stages of relationship development;
  3. Penetration is rapid at the start but slows down quickly as the tightly wrapped inner layers are reached;
  4. De-penetration is a gradual process of layer-by-layer withdrawal.

Computer-mediated social penetration:

Online communication seems to follow a different set of rules. Because much online communication occurs on an anonymous level, individuals have the freedom to forego the ‘rules’ of self disclosure. In on-line interactions personal information can be disclosed immediately and without the risk of excessive intimacy.

For example, Facebook users post extensive personal information, pictures, information on hobbies, and messages. This may be due to the heightened level of perceived control within the context of the online communication medium.

Relational patterns of interaction theory:

Paul Watzlawick's theory of communication, popularly known as the "Interactional View", interprets relational patterns of interaction in the context of five "axioms". The theory draws on the cybernetic tradition.

Watzlawick, his mentor Gregory Bateson and the members of the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto were known as the Palo Alto Group. Their work was highly influential in laying the groundwork for family therapy and the study of relationships.

Ubiquitous communication:

The theory states that a person's presence alone results in them, consciously or not, expressing things about themselves and their relationships with others (i.e., communicating).

A person cannot avoid interacting, and even if they do, their avoidance may be read as a statement by others. This ubiquitous interaction leads to the establishment of "expectations" and "patterns" which are used to determine and explain relationship types.

Expectations:

Individuals enter communication with others having established expectations for their own behavior as well as the behavior of those they are communicating with. During the interaction these expectations may be reinforced, or new expectations may be established that will be used in future interactions.

New expectations are created by new patterns of interaction, while reinforcement results from the continuation of established patterns of interaction.

Patterns of interaction:

Established patterns of interaction are created when a trend occurs regarding how two people interact with each other. There are two patterns of particular importance to the theory.

In symmetrical relationships, the pattern of interaction is defined by two people responding to one another in the same way. This is a common pattern of interaction within power struggles.

In complementary relationships, the participants respond to one another in opposing ways. An example of such a relationship would be when one person is argumentative while the other is quiet.

Relational control:

Relational control refers to who is in control within a relationship. The pattern of behavior between partners over time, not any individual's behavior, defines the control within a relationship. Patterns of behavior involve individuals’ responses to others’ assertions.

There are three kinds of responses:
  1. One-down responses are submissive to, or accepting of, another's assertions.
  2. One-up responses are in opposition to, or counter, another's assertions.
  3. One-across responses are neutral in nature.
​
Complementary exchanges:

A complementary exchange occurs when a partner asserts a one-up message which the other partner responds to with a one-down response. If complementary exchanges are frequent within a relationship it is likely that the relationship itself is complementary.

Symmetrical exchanges:

Symmetrical exchanges occur when one partner's assertion is countered with a reflective response: a one-up assertion is met with a one-up response, or a one-down assertion is met with a one-down response. If symmetrical exchanges are frequent within a relationship it is likely that the relationship is also symmetrical.

Applications of relational control include analysis of family interactions, and also the analysis of interactions such as those between teachers and students.

Theory of intertype relationships:
Main article: Socionics

Socionics proposes a theory of relationships between psychological types (intertype relationships) based on a modified version of C.G. Jung's theory of psychological types.

Communication between types is described using the concept of information metabolism proposed by Antoni Kępiński. Socionics defines 16 types of relations, ranging from the most attractive and comfortable to disputed.

This analysis gives insight into some features of interpersonal relations, including aspects of psychological and sexual compatibility, and ranks as one of the four most popular models of personality.

Identity management theory:
Main article: Identity management theory

Falling under the socio-cultural tradition, identity-management theory explains the establishment, development, and maintenance of identities within relationships, as well as changes to identities within relationships.

Establishing identities:

People establish their identities (or faces), and their partners, through a process referred to as "facework". Everyone has a desired identity which they are constantly working towards establishing. This desired identity can be both threatened and supported by attempts to negotiate a relational identity (the identity one shares with one's partner).

Thus, a person's desired identity is directly influenced by their relationships, and their relational identity by their desired individual identity.

Cultural influence:

Identity management pays significant attention to intercultural relationships and how they affect the relational and individual identities of those involved, especially the different ways in which partners of different cultures negotiate with each other in an effort to satisfy desires for adequate autonomous identities and relational identities.

Tensions within intercultural relationships can include stereotyping, or "identity freezing", and "nonsupport".

Relational stages of identity management:

Identity management is an ongoing process that Imahori and Cupach define as having three relational stages. The trial stage occurs at the beginning of an intercultural relationship when partners are beginning to explore their cultural differences. During this stage, each partner is attempting to determine what cultural identities they want in the relationship.

At the trial stage, cultural differences are significant barriers to the relationship and it is critical for partners to avoid identity freezing and nonsupport. During this stage, individuals are more willing to risk face threats to establish a balance necessary for the relationship.

The enmeshment stage occurs when a relational identity emerges with established common cultural features. During this stage, the couple becomes more comfortable with their collective identity and the relationship in general.

In the renegotiation stage, couples work through identity issues and draw on their past relational history while doing so.

A strong relational identity has been established by this stage and couples have mastered dealing with cultural differences. It is at this stage that cultural differences become part of the relationship rather than a tension within it.

Communication privacy management theory:
Main article: Communication privacy management theory

Communication privacy management theory, from the socio-cultural tradition, is concerned with how people negotiate openness and privacy in relation to communicated information.

This theory focuses on how people in relationships manage boundaries which separate the public from the private.

Boundaries:

An individual's private information is protected by the individual's boundaries. The permeability of these boundaries is ever changing, allowing selective access to certain pieces of information.

This sharing occurs when the individual has weighed their need to share the information against their need to protect themselves. This risk assessment is used by couples when evaluating their relationship boundaries. The disclosure of private information to a partner may result in greater intimacy, but it may also result in the discloser becoming more vulnerable.

Co-ownership of information:

When someone chooses to reveal private information to another person, they are making that person a co-owner of the information. Co-ownership comes with rules, responsibilities, and rights that must be negotiated between the discloser of the information and the receiver of it.

The rules might cover questions such as: Can the information be disclosed? When can the information be disclosed? To whom can the information be disclosed? And how much of the information can be disclosed? The negotiation of these rules can be complex, and the rules can be explicit as well as implicit; rules may also be violated.

Boundary turbulence:

What Petronio refers to as "boundary turbulence" occurs when rules are not mutually understood by co-owners, and when a co-owner of information deliberately violates the rules.

This is not uncommon and usually results in some kind of conflict. It often results in one party becoming more apprehensive about future revelations of information to the violator.

Cognitive dissonance theory:
Main article: Cognitive dissonance

The theory of cognitive dissonance, part of the cybernetic tradition, argues that humans are consistency seekers and attempt to reduce their dissonance, or cognitive discomfort. The theory was developed in the 1950s by Leon Festinger.

The theory holds that when individuals encounter new information or new experiences, they categorize the information based on their preexisting attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs. If the new encounter does not fit their preexisting assumptions, then dissonance is likely to occur.

Individuals are then motivated to reduce the dissonance they experience by avoiding situations that generate dissonance. For this reason, cognitive dissonance is considered a drive state that generates motivation to achieve consonance and reduce dissonance.

An example of cognitive dissonance would be if someone holds the belief that maintaining a healthy lifestyle is important, but maintains a sedentary lifestyle and eats unhealthy food.

They may experience dissonance between their beliefs and their actions. If there is a significant amount of dissonance, they may be motivated to work out more or eat healthier foods. They may also be inclined to avoid situations that bring them face to face with the fact that their attitudes and beliefs are inconsistent, by avoiding the gym and avoiding stepping on their weighing scale.

To avoid dissonance, individuals may select their experiences in several ways: 
  • selective exposure, i.e. seeking only information that is consonant with one's current beliefs, thoughts, or actions; 
  • selective attention, i.e. paying attention only to information that is consonant with one's beliefs; 
  • selective interpretation, i.e. interpreting ambiguous information in a way that seems consistent with one's beliefs;
  • and selective retention, i.e. remembering only information that is consistent with one's beliefs.

Types of cognitive relationships:

According to cognitive dissonance theory, there are three types of cognitive relationships: consonant relationships, dissonant relationships, and irrelevant relationships. Consonant relationships are when two elements, such as beliefs and actions, are in equilibrium with each other or coincide.

​Dissonant relationships are when two elements are not in equilibrium and cause dissonance. In irrelevant relationships, the two elements do not possess a meaningful relationship with one another.

​Attribution theory:
Main article: Attribution theory

Attribution theory is part of the socio-psychological tradition and analyzes how individuals make inferences about observed behavior. Attribution theory assumes that we make attributions, or social judgments, as a way to clarify or predict behavior.

Steps to the attribution process:
  1. Observe the behavior or action.
  2. Make judgments about the intention of a particular action.
  3. Make an attribution of cause, which may be internal (i.e. the cause is related to the person), or external (i.e. the cause of the action is external circumstances).

For example, when a student fails a test an observer may choose to attribute that action to 'internal' causes, such as insufficient study, laziness, or having a poor work ethic.

Alternatively the action might be attributed to 'external' factors such as the difficulty of the test, or real-world stressors that led to distraction.

Individuals also make attributions about their own behavior. The student who received a failing test score might make an internal attribution, such as "I just can’t understand this material", or an external attribution, such as "this test was just too difficult."

Fundamental attribution error and actor-observer bias:

Observers making attributions about the behavior of others may overemphasize internal attributions and underestimate external attributions; this is known as the fundamental attribution error.

Conversely, when an individual makes an attribution about their own behavior they may overestimate external attributions and underestimate internal attributions. This is called actor-observer bias.

Expectancy violations theory:
Main article: Expectancy violations theory

Expectancy violations theory is part of the socio-psychological tradition, and addresses the relationship between non-verbal message production and the interpretations people hold for those non-verbal behaviors.

Individuals hold certain expectations for non-verbal behavior that are based on social norms, past experience and situational aspects of that behavior. When expectations are either met or violated, we make assumptions about the behaviors and judge them to be positive or negative.

Arousal:

When a deviation of expectations occurs, there is an increased interest in the situation, also known as arousal. This may be either cognitive arousal, an increased mental awareness of expectancy deviations, or physical arousal, resulting in body actions and behaviors as a result of expectancy deviations.

Reward valence:

When an expectation is not met, an individual may view the violation of expectations either positively or negatively, depending on their relationship to the violator and their feelings about the outcome.

Proxemics:

One type of violation of expectations is the violation of the expectation of personal space.

The study of proxemics focuses on the use of space to communicate. Edward T. Hall's (1940-2017) theory of personal space defined four zones that carry different messages in the U.S.:
  • Intimate distance (0–18 inches). This is reserved for intimate relationships with significant others, or the parent-child relationship (hugging, cuddling, kisses, etc.)
  • Personal distance (18–48 inches). This is appropriate for close friends and acquaintances, such as significant others and close friends, e.g. sitting close to a friend or family member on the couch.
  • Social distance (4–10 feet). This is appropriate for new acquaintances and for professional situations, such as interviews and meetings.
  • Public distance (10 feet or more). This is appropriate for a public setting, such as a public street or a park.

Pedagogical communication:
Main article: Pedagogical communication

Pedagogical communication is a form of interpersonal communication that involves both verbal and nonverbal components. A teacher's nonverbal immediacy, clarity, and socio-communicative style has significant consequences for students' affective and cognitive learning.

It has been argued that "companionship" is a useful metaphor for the role of "immediacy", the perception of physical, emotional, or psychological proximity created by positive communicative behaviors, in pedagogy.

Social networks:
Main article: Social networks

A social network is made up of a set of individuals (or organizations) and the links among them. For example, each individual may be treated as a node, and each connection due to friendship or other relationship is treated as a link.

Links may be weighted by the content or frequency of interactions or the overall strength of the relationship. This treatment allows patterns or structures within the network to be identified and analyzed, and shifts the focus of interpersonal communication research from solely analyzing dyadic relationships to analyzing larger networks of connections among communicators. 

Instead of describing the personalities and communication qualities of an individual, individuals are described in terms of their relative location within a larger social network structure. Such structures both create and reflect a wide range of social phenomena.

Hurt:

Interpersonal communications can lead to hurt in relationships. Categories of hurt include devaluation, relational transgressions, and hurtful communication.

Devaluation:

A person can feel devalued at the individual and relational level. Individuals can feel devalued when someone insults their intelligence, appearance, personality, or life decisions.

At the relational level, individuals can feel devalued when they believe that their partner does not perceive the relationship to be close, important, or valuable.

Relational transgressions:

Relational transgressions occur when individuals violate implicit or explicit relational rules. For instance, if the relationship is conducted on the assumption of sexual and emotional fidelity, violating this standard represents a relational transgression.

Infidelity is a form of hurt that can have particularly strong negative effects on relationships.

The method by which the infidelity is discovered influences the degree of hurt: witnessing the partner's infidelity first hand is most likely to destroy the relationship, while partners who confess on their own are most likely to be forgiven.

Hurtful communication:

Hurtful communication is communication that inflicts psychological pain. According to Vangelisti (1994), words "have the ability to hurt or harm in every bit as real a way as physical objects. A few ill-spoken words (e.g. "You're worthless," "You'll never amount to anything," "I don't love you anymore") can strongly affect individuals, interactions, and relationships."

Interpersonal conflict:

Many interpersonal communication scholars have sought to define and understand interpersonal conflict, using varied definitions of conflict.

In 2004, Barki and Hartwick consolidated several definitions across the discipline and defined conflict as "a dynamic process that occurs between interdependent parties as they experience negative emotional reactions to perceived disagreements and interference with the attainment of their goals". They note three properties generally associated with conflict situations: disagreement, negative emotion, and interference.

In the context of an organization, there are two targets of conflicts: tasks, or interpersonal relationships. Conflicts over events, plans, behaviors, etc. are task issues, while conflict in relationships involves dispute over issues such as attitudes, values, beliefs, behaviors, or relationship status.

Technology and interpersonal communication skills:

Technologies such as email, text messaging and social media have added a new dimension to interpersonal communication. There are increasing claims that over-reliance on online communication affects the development of interpersonal communication skills, in particular nonverbal communication. 

Psychologists and communication experts argue that listening to and comprehending conversations plays a significant role in developing effective interpersonal communication skills.

Others:
  • Attachment theory. This theory follows the relationships that builds between a mother and child, and the impact it has on their relationships with others. It resulted from the combined work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991).
  • Ethics in personal relations. This considers a space of mutual responsibility between two individuals, including giving and receiving in a relationship. This theory is explored by Dawn J. Lipthrott in the article "What IS Relationship? What is Ethical Partnership?"
  • Deception in communication.This concept is based on the premise that everyone lies and considers how lying impacts relationships. James Hearn explores this theory in his article, "Interpersonal Deception Theory: Ten Lessons for Negotiators."
  • Conflict in couples. This focuses on the impact that social media has on relationships, as well as how to communicate through conflict. This theory is explored by Amanda Lenhart and Maeve Duggan in their paper, "Couples, the Internet, and Social Media."

Relevance to mass communication:

Interpersonal communication has been studied as a mediator for information flow from mass media to the wider population. The two-step flow of communication theory proposes that most people form their opinions under the influence of opinion leaders, who in turn are influenced by the mass media.

Many studies have repeated this logic in investigating the effects of personal and mass communication, for example in election campaigns and health-related information campaigns.

It is not clear whether or how social networking through sites such as Facebook changes this picture. Social networking is conducted over electronic devices with no face-to-face interaction, resulting in an inability to access the behavior of the communicator and the nonverbal signals that facilitate communication. 

Side effects of using these technologies for communication may not always be apparent to the individual user, and may involve both benefits and risks.

Context:

​Context refers to environmental factors that influence the outcomes of communication. These include time and place, as well as factors like family relationships, gender, culture, personal interest and the environment. 

Any given situation may involve many interacting contexts, including the retrospective context and the emergent context. The retrospective context is everything that comes before a particular behavior that might help understand and interpret that behavior, while the emergent context refers to relevant events that come after the behavior. 

Context can include all aspects of social channels and situational milieu, the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the participants, and the developmental stage or maturity of the participants.

Situational milieu:

Situational milieu can be defined as the combination of the social and physical environments in which something takes place. For example, a classroom, a military conflict, a supermarket checkout, and a hospital would be considered situational milieus. The season, weather, current physical location and environment are also milieus.

To understand the meaning of what is being communicated, context must be considered. Internal and external noise can have a profound effect on interpersonal communication. External noise consists of outside influences that distract from the communication. Internal noise is described as cognitive causes of interference in a communication transaction. 

In the hospital setting, for example, external noise can include the sound made by medical equipment or conversations had by team members outside of patient's rooms, and internal noise could be a health care professional's thoughts about other issues that distract them from the current conversation with a client.

Channels of communication also affect the effectiveness of interpersonal communication. Communication channels may be either synchronous or asynchronous: 
In a hospital environment, for example, urgent situations may require the immediacy of communication through synchronous channels. Benefits of synchronous communication include immediate message delivery, and fewer chances of misunderstandings and miscommunications.

A disadvantage of synchronous communication is that it can be difficult to retain, recall, and organize the information that has been given in a verbal message, especially when copious amounts of data have been communicated in a short amount of time. Asynchronous messages can serve as reminders of what has been done and what needs to be done, which can prove beneficial in a fast-paced health care setting.

However, the sender does not know when the other person will receive the message. When used appropriately, synchronous and asynchronous communication channels are both efficient ways to communicate. Mistakes in hospital contexts are often a result of communication problems.

Cultural and linguistic backgrounds:

Linguistics is the study of language, and is divided into three broad aspects: the form of language, the meaning of language, and the context or function of language. 

Form refers to the words and sounds of language and how the words are used to make sentences. 

Meaning focuses on the significance of the words and sentences that human beings have put together. 

Function, or context, interprets the meaning of the words and sentences being said to understand why a person is communicating.

Culture is a human concept that encompasses the beliefs, values, attitudes, and customs of groups of people. It is important in communication because of the help it provides in transmitting complex ideas, feelings, and specific situations from one person to another.

Culture influences an individual's thoughts, feelings and actions, and therefore affects communication. The more difference there is between the cultural backgrounds of two people, the more different their styles of communication will be. 

Therefore, it is important to be aware of a person's background, ideas and beliefs and consider their social, economic and political positions before attempting to decode the message accurately and respond appropriately. 

Five major elements related to culture affect the communication process:
  1. Cultural history
  2. Religion
  3. Value (personal and cultural)
  4. Social organization
  5. Language

Communication between cultures may occur through verbal communication or nonverbal communication. Culture influences verbal communication in a variety of ways, particularly by imposing language barriers. 

Each individual has their own languages, beliefs and values that must be considered:
  • Factors influencing nonverbal communication include the different roles of eye contact in different cultures. 
  • Touching as a form of greeting may be perceived as impolite in some cultures, but normal in others. 

Acknowledging and understanding these cultural differences improves communication.

In the health professions, communication is an important part of the quality of care and strongly influences client and resident satisfaction; it is a core element of care and is a fundamentally required skill. 

​For example, the nurse-patient relationship is mediated by both verbal and nonverbal communication, and both aspects need to be understood.

Developmental Progress (maturity)
​
Communication skills develop throughout one's lifetime. The majority of language development happens during infancy and early childhood. The attributes for each level of development can be used to improve communication with individuals of these ages.

See also:







Visual  Communications through
 Communications Design Pictured below: The Major Components of Visual Communication and Visual Design*
* -- ​The Major Components of Visual Communication and Visual Design
By Justin | blog, Visual Communication 

Visual communication is the use of images, symbols, animation, video, and other components of visual communication to convey a message to the viewer. For example, whiteboard animations provide a captivating component to marketing messages that wouldn’t be as compelling otherwise. 

Animated video is yet another element of visual communication, in which the animations are essential to the verbal and textual aspects of the story.

The Difference Between Visual Communication and Design:

Design comprises only part of the broader discipline of visual communication. Designers typically use elements of visual communication to create designs that deliver messages to the target audience.

Visual design focuses mainly on the technical and creative aspects, such as the hierarchy, grouping, and sequence of visual elements. Visual communications, on the other hand, concerns itself with the bigger picture, utilizing other processes and methods to deliver the intended message more effectively.

Components of Visual Communication:

Use these elements to create powerful and compelling visual content to drive visual communication that can transform your business.

Color:

Color has a significant effect in terms of influencing purchase decisions. Color psychology is one of the most intriguing areas of marketing, and it’s been determined that nearly 85% of consumers are compelled to make purchases based on a product’s color. For example, given two similar products, most consumers would prefer to buy a blue model than a red one due to the feeling of comfort that the color produces.

Position:

Effective use of positioning helps establish the relationship between images and graphic elements and signifies their degree of importance. Visual communicators typically place the most important elements in a prominent position of a page, with other elements serving support and complementary roles.

The positioning also helps direct the viewer to the different sections of a page, allowing them to follow a narrative or flow of information in the proper sequence.

Texture:

Texture can communicate a lot more information than most people would think. When used in infographic images, rough textures can suggest an earthier and more rustic feel, while a smooth texture can give inspire a feeling of comfort or human-ness.

A total absence of texture, on the other hand, can give viewers the impression of professionalism or a corporate image.

Size: 

Along with position, size can also establish the degree of importance of visual elements. The strategic use of size can be especially effective with infographics, where larger elements command more attention than smaller elements.

Of course, the need to emphasize certain elements shouldn’t come at the cost of balance and optimal visual flow. Making the infographic larger gives you enough space to make important elements more prominent without cluttering the image.

Orientation:

 Orientation refers to the position or direction of a visual element in relation to the other elements on the page. The way a particular element is oriented contributes to the symmetry of the entire design. Proper orientation could also prevent confusion and make it easier for viewers to understand the message of a graphic.

Shape:

The shape of a visual element can communicate a feel or a message in ways ranging from the subtle to the dramatic. In terms of visual communication, shapes can be grouped into three categories: organic, geometric, and abstract.

Organic shapes typically do not have defined sides, angles, or straight lines. These shapes can communicate a more casual and humanistic feel, but they can also be random and chaotic. 

Geometric shapes have strictly defined lines and angles. They can communicate modernism, strength, and formality. They can also impart a sense of stability and security. 

Abstract shapes can be totally random, although most are based on the most recognizable aspect of an object or a figure. Abstract elements can give an impression of modernity or playfulness.

Tone:

Tone refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. Effective use of tone can inspire different emotions in the viewer and give an object a three-dimensional appearance. For example, 3D animation employs tonal gradients to make images seem more ‘real.’ as if they are rendered in three dimensions instead of two.

Elements of Visual Design:

Visual design refers to the strategic use of different design tools and elements to shape and improve the user experience. To achieve their goals, visual designers typically use illustrations, photographs, type, space, layouts, and color in various combinations and arrangements.

Figure and Ground Contrast: Figure-ground refers to the shapes, space, or forms within a composition. In simplest terms, the figures are the main elements on the page, and the ground is the visual space or ‘environment’ where the figures are positioned. Proper use of contrast will help direct the viewer’s attention to the important figures, enabling them to stand out against a complementary background.

Repetition: Repetition can be a very effective tool for reinforcing a message or improving recall. In some cases, however, a single non-repeating element that stands out prominently on a page can create an even more powerful and memorable impression.

Alignment and Balance: 

Balance and alignment can result in a more comforting image and suggest stability and security. But asymmetry can also be a useful visual approach, giving a design a more casual and vibrant feel.

Proximity:

Most people tend to ‘see’ elements that are positioned close to each other as a single unit. Proximity helps establish the relationships of objects with one another and directs the viewer through the different areas of the page.

Using visual communication and design strategies can become time-consuming, especially when you create and implement the strategies. Contact IGW today to get help with your visual content and communication efforts.
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​Visual communications:

Visual communication is the use of visual elements to convey ideas and information which include (but are not limited to): 
Visual communication has been proven to be unique when compared to other verbal or written languages because of its more abstract structure. It stands out for its uniqueness, as the interpretation of signs varies on the viewer's field of experience. The interpretation of imagery is often compared to the set alphabets and words used in oral or written languages.

Another point of difference found by scholars is that, though written or verbal languages are taught, sight does not have to be learned and therefore people of sight may lack awareness of visual communication and its influence in their everyday life. Many of the visual elements listed above are forms of visual communication that humans have been using since prehistoric times. 

Within modern culture, there are several types of characteristics when it comes to visual elements, they consist of objects, models, graphs, diagrams, maps, and photographs.

Outside the different types of characteristics and elements, there are seven components of visual communication: 
  1. color, 
  2. shape,
  3. tones, 
  4. texture, 
  5. figure-ground,
  6. balance,
  7. and hierarchy.

Each of these characteristics, elements, and components play an important role in daily lives. Visual communication holds a specific purpose in aspects such as social media, culture, politics, economics, and science.

In considering these different aspects, visual elements present various uses and how they convey information. Whether it is advertisements, teaching and learning, or speeches and presentations, they all involve visual aids that communicate a message.

In reference to the visual aids, the following are the most common:
  • chalkboard or whiteboard,
  • poster board,
  • handouts,
  • video excerpts,
  • projection equipment,
  • and computer-assisted presentations.


Overview:

The debate about the nature of visual communication dates back thousands of years. Visual communication relies on a collection of activities, communicating ideas, attitudes, and values via visual resources, i.e. text, graphics, or video. 

The evaluation of a good visual communication design is mainly based on measuring comprehension by the audience, not on personal aesthetic and/or artistic preference as there are no universally agreed-upon principles of aesthetics. 

Visual communication by e-mail, a textual medium, is commonly expressed with ASCII art, emoticons, and embedded digital images. Visual communication has become one of the most important approaches using which people communicate and share information.

The term 'visual presentation' is used to refer to the actual presentation of information through a visible medium such as text or images. Recent research in the field has focused on web design and graphically-oriented usability.

Important figures:

Aldous Huxley is regarded as one of the most prominent explorers of visual communication and sight-related theories. Becoming near-blind in his teen years as the result of an illness influenced his approach, and his work includes important novels on the dehumanizing aspects of scientific progress, most famously Brave New World and The Art of Seeing.

He described "seeing" as being the sum of sensing, selecting, and perceiving. One of his most famous quotes is "The more you see, the more you know."

Max Wertheimer is said to be the father of Gestalt psychology. Gestalt means form or shape in German, and the study of Gestalt psychology show emphasis in simplicity, as its properties group visuals by similarity in shape or color, continuity, and proximity. Additional laws include closure and figure-ground principles in studied images is also intensively taught.

Image analysis:

Visual communication contains image aspects. The interpretation of images is subjective and to understand the depth of meaning, or multiple meanings, communicated in an image requires image analysis. Images can be analyzed though many perspectives, for example these six major perspectives presented by Paul Martin Lester:
  1. Personal,
  2. Historical,
  3. Technical,
  4. Ethical,
  5. Cultural,
  6. and Critical.
 
  • Personal perspective: When a viewer has an opinion about an image based on their personal thoughts. Personal response depends on the viewer's thoughts and values, individually. However, this might sometimes conflict with cultural values. Also when a viewer has viewed an image with a personal perspective, it is hard to change the view of the image on the viewer, even though the image can be seen in other ways.
  • Historical perspective: An image's view can be arising from the history of the use of media. Through times sort images have been changed, because the use of different (new) media. For example: The result of using the computer to edit images (e.g. Photoshop) is quite different when comparing images that are made and edited by craft.
  • Technical perspective: When the view of an image is influenced by the use of lights, position and the presentation of the image. The right use of light, position and presentation of the image can improve the view of the image. It makes the image looks better than the reality.
  • Ethical perspective: From this perspective, the maker of the image, the viewer and the image itself must be responsible morally and ethically to the image. This perspective is also categorized in six categories: 
  • Cultural perspective: Symbolization is an important definition for this perspective. Cultural perspective involves identity of symbols. The uses of words that are related with the image, the use of heroes in the image, etc. are the symbolization of the image. The cultural perspective can also be seen as the semiotic perspective.
  • Critical perspective: The view of images in the critical perspective is when the viewers criticize the images, but the critics have been made in interests of the society, although an individual makes the critics. This way this perspective differs from the personal perspective.


Visual aid media: Simple to advanced

Chalkboard or whiteboard: 

Chalkboards and whiteboards are very useful visual aids, particularly when more advanced types of media are available. They are cheap and also allow for much flexibility. The use of chalkboards or whiteboards is convenient, but they are not a perfect visual aid.

Often, using this medium as an aid can create confusion or boredom. Particularly if a student who is not familiar with how to properly use visual aids attempts to draw on a board while they are speaking, they detract time and attention from their actual speech.

Poster board:

A poster is a very simple and easy visual aid. Posters can display charts, graphs, pictures, or illustrations. The biggest drawback of using a poster as a visual aid is that often a poster can appear unprofessional. Since a poster board paper is relatively flimsy, often the paper will bend or fall over. The best way to present a poster is to hang it up or tape it to a wall.

Handouts:

Handouts can also display charts, graphs, pictures, or illustrations. An important aspect of the use of a handout is that a person can keep a handout with them long after the presentation is over. This can help the person better remember what was discussed.

Passing out handouts, however, can be extremely distracting. Once a handout is given out, it might potentially be difficult to bring back your audience's attention. The person who receives the handout might be tempted to read what is on the paper, which will keep them from listening to what the speaker is saying.

If using a handout, the speaker distributes the hand out right before you reference it. Distributing handouts is acceptable in a lecture that is an hour or two, but in a short lecture of five to ten minutes, a handout should not be used.

Video excerpts: 

A video can be a great visual aid and attention grabber, however, a video is not a replacement for an actual speech. There are several potential drawbacks to playing a video during a speech or lecture.

First, if a video is playing that includes audio, the speaker will not be able to talk. Also, if the video is very exciting and interesting, it can make what the speaker is saying appear boring and uninteresting.

The key to showing a video during a presentation is to make sure to transition smoothly into the video and to only show very short clips.

Projection equipment:

There are several types of projectors. These include slide projectors, overhead projectors, and computer projectors.

Slide projectors are the oldest form of projector, and are no longer used.

Overhead projectors are still used but are somewhat inconvenient to use. In order to use an overhead projector, a transparency must be made of whatever is being projected onto the screen. This takes time and costs money.

Computer projectors are the most technologically advanced projectors. When using a computer projector, pictures and slides are easily taken right from a computer either online or from a saved file and are blown up and shown on a large screen. Though computer projectors are technologically advanced, they are not always completely reliable because technological breakdowns are not uncommon of the computers of today.

Computer-assisted presentations:

Presentations through presentation software can be an extremely useful visual aid, especially for longer presentations. For five- to ten-minute presentations, it is probably not worth the time or effort to put together a deck of slides.

For longer presentations, however, they can be a great way to keep the audience engaged and keep the speaker on track.

A potential drawback of using them is that it usually takes a lot of time and energy to put together. There is also the possibility of a computer malfunction, which can mess up the flow of a presentation.


Components:

Components of visualization make communicating information more intriguing and compelling. The following components are the foundation for communicating visually.

Hierarchy is an important principle because it assists the audience in processing the information by allowing them to follow through the visuals piece by piece. When having a focal point on a visual aid (i.e. Website, Social Media, Poster, etc...), it can serve as a starting point for the audience to guide them. In order to achieve hierarchy, we must take into account the other components: Color, Shape, Tones, Texture, Figure-Ground, Balance.

Colors is the first and most important component when communicating through visuals. Colors displays an in-depth connection between emotions and experiences. Additive and subtractive color models help in visually communicating aesthetically please information. 

Additive color model, also known as RGB color (Red, Green, Blue) goes from dark to light colors, while subtractive color model is the opposite. The subtractive color model includes the primary CMYK colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) which go from light to dark.

Shape is the next fundamental component that assists in creating a symbol that builds a connection with the audience. There are two categories that shapes can fall under: Organic or Biomorphic shapes, and Geometric or Rectilinear shapes:
  1. Organic or biomorphic shapes are shapes that depict natural materials (which include curvy lines),
  2. while Geometric or Rectilinear shapes are shapes that are created by man (including triangles, rectangles, ovals, and circles).

Tone refers to the difference of color intensity, meaning more light or dark. The purpose of achieving a certain tone is to put a spotlight on a graphical presentation and emphasize the information.

Similarly, texture can enhance the viewers optics and creates a more personal feel compared to a corporate feel. Texture refers to the surface of an object, whether is it 2-D or 3-D, that can amplify a user's content.

Figure-ground is the relationship between a figure and the background. In other words, it is the relationship between shapes, objects, types, etc. and the space it is in. We can look at figure as the positive space, and ground as the negative space. In comparison, positive space is the objects that hold dominance visually, while negative space (as mentioned previously) is the background.

In addition to creating a strong contrast in color, texture, and tone, figure-ground can highlight different figures. As for balance, it is important to have symmetrical or asymmetrical balance in visual communication.

Symmetrical balance holds a stable composition and is proper in conveying informative visual communication. As for asymmetrical balance, the balance of visuals is weighted more to one side. For instance, color is more weighted to one color than the other, while in a symmetrical balance all colors are equally weighted.


Visual Literacy:

Studies often define visual literacy (or visual competence) as the ability to understand and process what is being seen in order to make sense of the world. Being visually literate has been shown to be an important aspect of life to those with sight.

The function of sight itself has mechanisms that must work together in order to transform the lines, shapes, and colors around a person's environment into a cohesive picture that can then hold meaning. 

These mechanisms are what occur in the human body that allow a person's eye to make sense of what the viewer sees and then the signals that are sent to relay information to their brain to be processed. However, studies conducted state that visual intelligence is not something that is taught but rather observed.

It is also noted within this study that this skill often goes unnoticed until it is impaired. This act of processing what is being seen has been shown to happen quickly and oftentimes without the viewer’s cognizant awareness.

The effect visual literacy has on a viewer has also been shown to influence aspects of their life such as, attitudes, values, beliefs, as well as cultural views. Scholars have noted how society and culture is often dominated by imagery, especially with the rise of mass technological media.

The dominance of visuals in culture such as film, television and social media, have now been used by various companies for their advertisements. 

Presidential and political candidates have also turned to the media to visually promote their campaigns. With many of these advertisements present in everyday life, the viewers of this content may often be open to influence without being cognizant of it.


Study Of Symbols:

Semiotics:
​
Semiotics is the study of signs and visuals within society that relay meaning. The symbols used in different cultures to convey a meaning also entails the hidden systems and functions that make up the symbols. Logos, gestures, and technological signs such as emoticons, are a few examples of symbols used in culture.

Semiology:

The term semiology is the study of signs and symbols and their arrangements as a visual language. The characterization of what is considered a language is the existence of an alphabet that can be arranged to create meaning.

An example of signs, or an alphabet, that can be arranged to create meaning are the 26 letters that make up the Modern English Alphabet which can then be used to compose written messages that can then be relayed orally.

However, in semiology, the signs that create the alphabet of visual communication are more abstract than a written or verbal languages alphabet. In comparison to the English Alphabet, the visual alphabet is still being studied due to the various channels that may be used to relay visuals.

Components of a still graphic compared to film, for instance. Another category of study within the field of semiotics is how the interpretation of visual signs depends on the experiences of the person interpreting the visual components of symbols, commonly referred to as the interpretant.

Theory Of Semiotics:

Collectively, the study of visual imagery and gestures as a language has two major schools of thought. The contributors who are commonly referred to are; Charles Sanders Peirce and his descendants and Ferdinand de Saussure. Peirce’s school of thought is the meaning that the interpreter assigns to a particular sign instead of the study of the sign itself.

His work focuses on the pragmatics, semantics, and structure of a symbol in visual communication. Saussure, however, focused primarily on the structure and value of a sign and its relation to other symbols within the language system. The school of thought that Saussure curated contributed to the rise of structuralism as well as later theories developed by various scholars in the field of communication.


Prominence and motive:

Social media:
​
​Social media is one of the most effective ways to communicate. The incorporation of text and images deliver messages quicker and more simplistic through social media platforms. A potential drawback can be there is limited access due to the internet access requirement and certain limitations to the number of characters and image size. 

Despite the potential drawback, there has been a shift towards more visual images with the rise of YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat. In the rise of these platforms, Facebook and Twitter, have followed suit and integrated more visual images into their platform outside the use of written posts. 

It can be stated that visual images are used in two ways: as additional clarification for spoken or written text, or to create individual meaning (usually incorporating ambiguous meanings).

These meanings can assist in creating casual friendships through interactions and either show or fabricate reality. These major platforms are becoming focused on visual images by growing a multi-modal platform with users having the ability to edit or adjust their pictures or videos these platforms. 

When analyzing the relationship between visual communication and social media, four themes arise:
  • Emerging genres and practices: The sharing of various visual elements allow for the creation of genres, or new arrangements of socially accepted visual elements (i.e. photographs or GIFs) based on the platforms. These emerging genres are used as self-expression of identity, to feel a sense of belonging of different sub-group of the online community.
  • Identity construction: Similar to genres, users will use visuals through social media to express their identities. Visual elements can change in meaning over a period of time by the person who shared it, which means that visual elements can be dynamic. This makes visuals uncontrollable since the person may not identify as that specific identity, but rather someone who has evolved.
  • Everyday public/private vernacular practices: This theme presents the difficulty of deciphering what is considered public, or private. Users can post the privacy from their own home, however, their post is interacting with users from the online public.
  • Transmedia circulation, appropriation, and control: Transmedia circulation refers to visual elements being circulated through different types of media. Visual elements, such as images can be taken from one platform, edited, and posted to another platform without recognizing where it originally came from. The concept of appropriation and ownership can be brought into question, making aware the idea that if a user can appropriate another person work, then that user's work can appropriated, as well.

Culture:

Members of different cultures can participate in the exchange of visual imagery based on the idea of universal understandings. The term visual culture allows for all cultures to feel equal, making it the inclusive aspect of every life. 

When considering visual culture in communication, it is shaped by the values amongst all cultures, especially regarding the concepts of high and low-context. Cultures that are generally more high-context will rely heavily on visual elements that have an implied and implicit meaning.

However, cultures that are low-context will rely on visual elements that have a direct meaning and rely more on the textual explanations. 

Visual communication can be defined in different ways (Volli 1994). An effective one is through opposition with signification (Volli 2010). Whereas visual signification can be unintentional, there is no communication without intentionality. A sunset signifies something, whereas a painting signifies something but also communicates, because culture marks it as product of communicative intentionality.

However, imputation of intentionality changes across cultures and epochs. Whereas religion may see a sunset as a divine message, secular observers will attach to it an unintentional meaning of nostalgia.

Politics:

Visual communication in politics have become a primary sense of communication, while dialogue and text have become a secondary sense. This may be due to the increased use of televisions, as viewers become more dependent on visuals. 

Sound bite has become a popular and perfected art among all political figures. Despite it being a favored mode of showcasing a political figure's agenda, it has shown that 25.1% of news coverage displayed image bites - instead of voices, there are images and short videos.

Visuals are deemed an essential function in political communication, and behind these visuals are 10 functions for why political figures use them. These functions include the following::
  • Argument function: Although images do not indicate any words being said, this function conveys the idea that images can have an association between objects or ideas. Visuals in politics can make arguments about the different aspects of a political figure's character or intentions. When introducing visual imagery with sound, the targeted audience can clarify ambiguous messages that a political figure has said in interviews or news stories.
  • Agenda setting function: Under this function, it is important that political figures produce newsworthy pictures that will allow for their message to gain coverage. The reason for this is due to the agenda-setting theory, where importance of public agenda is taken into consideration when the media determines the importance of a certain story or issue. With that said, if politicians do not provide an interesting and attention-grabbing picture, there will likely be no news coverage. A way for a politician to gain news coverage, is to provide exclusivity for what the media can capture from a certain event. Despite not having the ability to control whether they receive coverage, they can control if the media gets an interesting and eye-catching visual.
  • Dramatization function: Similar to agenda setting, the dramatization function targets a specific policy that a political figure wants to advocate for. This function can be seen when Michelle Obama promoted nutrition by hosting a media event of her planting a vegetable garden, or Martin Luther King Jr. producing visuals from his 1963 campaign for racial injustice. In some cases, these images are used as icons for social movements.
  • Emotional function: Visuals can be used as a way to provoke an emotional response. A study that was performed found that motion pictures and video has more of an emotional impact than still images. On the other hand, research has suggested that the logic and rationality of a viewer is not barred by emotion. In fact, logic and emotion are interrelated meaning that images not only can have emotional arousal, but also influence viewers to think logically.
  • Image-building function: Imagery gives a viewer a first impression of a candidate when they are running for office. These visuals give voters a sense of who they will be voting for during the elections, regarding their background, personality, or demeanor. They can create their image by appearing be family-oriented, religiously involved, or showing a commonality with the disadvantaged community.
  • Identification function: Through the identification function, visuals can create an identification between political figures and audiences. In other words, the audience may perceive a type of similarity with the political figure. When a voter finds a similarity with a candidate they are more likely to vote for them. This is the same when a voter notices a candidate who does not have any perceived similarities, then they are less likely to vote for them.
  • Documentation function: Similar to a stamp on a passport that indicated you have been to a certain country, photographs of a political figure can document that an event had happened and they were there. By documenting an event that occurred, there is evidence and proof for argumentative claims. If a political figure claims one thing, then there is evidence to either back it up or disprove it.
  • Societal symbol function: This function is used in visuals when political figures use iconic symbols to draw on emotional power. For instance, political figures will stand with American flags, be photographed with military personnel, or even attending a sport. These three areas of societal symbols hold a strong sense of patriotism. In comparison, congressional candidates may be pictured with former or current presidents to gain an implied endorsement. Many places like the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, or the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier can be seen and iconic, societal symbols that hold a sense of emotional power.
  • Transportation function: The transportation function of using visuals is to transporter the viewer to a different time or place. Visuals can figuratively bring viewers to the past or to an idealized future. Political figures will use this tactic as a way to appeal to the emotional side of their audience and get them to visually relate to the argument that is at hand.
  • Ambiguity function: Visuals can be used to interpret different meanings without having to add any words. By not adding any words, visuals are normally used for controversial arguments. On the basis that visual claims can be controversial, they are held to a less strict standard compared to other symbols.

Economic:

Economics has been built on the foundation of visual elements, such as graphs and charts. Similar to the other aspects of why visual elements are used, graphs are used by economists to clarify complex ideas. Graphs simplify the process of visualizing trends that happen over time.

Along the same lines, graphs are able to assist in determining a relationship between two or more variables. The relationship can determine if there is a positive correlation or negative correlation between the variables. A graph that economists rely heavily on is a time-series graph, which measures a particular variable over a period of time. The graph includes time being on the X-axis, while a changing variable is on the Y-axis.

Science and medicine:

Science and medicine has shown a need for visual communication to assist in explaining to non-scientific readers. From Bohr's atomic model to NASA's photographs of Earth, these visual elements have served as tools in furthering the understand of science and medicine.

More specifically, elements like graphs and slides portray both data and scientific concepts. Patterns that are revealed by those graphs are then used in association with the data to determine a meaningful correlation. As for photographs, they can be useful for physicians to rely on in figuring out visible signs of diseases and illnesses.

However, using visual elements can have a negative effect on the understanding of information. Two major obstacles for non-scientific readers is:
  1. the lack of integration of visual elements in every day scientific language,
  2. incorrectly identifying the targeted audience and not adjusting to their level of understanding.

To tackle these obstacles, one solution is for science communicators must place the user at the center of the design, which is called User-Centered Design. This design focuses on strictly the user and how they can interact with the visual element with minimum stress, but maximum level of efficiency. 

Another solution could be implemented at the source, which is university-based programs. In these programs, universities need to introduce visual literacy to those in science communication, helping in producing graduates who can accurately interpret, analyze, evaluate, and design visual elements that further the understanding of science and medicine.


See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

Communication design:

​Communication design is a mixed discipline between design and information-development concerned with how media communicate with people. A communication design approach is concerned with developing the message and aesthetics in media. It also creates new media channels to ensure the message reaches the target audience.

Due to overlapping skills, some designers use graphic design and communication design interchangeably.

Communication design can also refer to a systems-based approach, in which the totality of media and messages within a culture or organization are designed as a single integrated process rather than a series of discrete efforts. This is done through communication channels that aim to inform and attract the attention of the target audience.

Design skills must be used to create content suitable for different cultures and to maintain a pleasurable visual design. These are crucial pieces of a successful media communications kit.

Within the Communication discipline, the emerging framework for Communication as Design focuses on redesigning interactivity and shaping communication affordances.

Software and applications create opportunities for and place constraints on communication.

Recently, Guth and Brabham examined the way that ideas compete within a crowdsourcing platform, providing a model for the relationships among design ideas, communication, and platform. 

The same authors have interviewed technology company founders about the democratic ideals they build into the design of e-government applications and technologies. Interest in the Communication as Design framework continues growing among researchers.


Overview:

Communication design seeks to attract, inspire, and motivate people to respond to messages and to make favorable impact. This impact oriented toward the objectives of the commissioning body, which can be either to build a brand or move sales. It can also range from changing behaviors, to promoting a message, to disseminating information.

The process of communication design involves strategic business thinking, including:
Communication designers translate ideas and information through a variety of media. In order to establish credibility and influence audiences through the communication, communication designers use both traditional tangible skills and the ability to think strategically in design and marketing terms.

The term communication design is often used interchangeably with visual communication, but it maintains a broader meaning that includes auditory, vocal, touch, and olfactory senses.

Examples of communication design practices include: 

Education:

Students of communication design learn how to create visual messages and broadcast them to the world in new and meaningful ways. In the complex digital environment around us, communication design has become a powerful means of reaching out to the target audiences.

Therefore, it expands its focus beyond user-experiences to user-networks. Students learn how to combine communication with art and technology. The communication design discipline involves teaching how to design: 
Communication Design has content as its main purpose. It must achieve a reaction, or get a customer to see a product in a genuine way to attract sales or effectively communicate a message. Communication design students are often: 
The term communications design is fairly general considering its interdisciplinary practitioners operate within various mediums to get a message across.


Subdisciplines:
Visual communication design:

Visual communication design is the design working in any media or support of visual communication. This is considered by some to be more accurate alternative terminology to cover all types of design applied in communication. It uses a visual channel for message transmission, reflecting the visual language inherent to some media. 

Unlike the terms graphic design (graphics) or interface design (electronic media), it is not limited to support a particular form of content.

Print media design:

Print media design is a graphic design discipline that creates designs for printed media. Print design involves the creation of:
  • flyers,
  • brochures,
  • book covers,
  • t-shirt prints,
  • business cards,
  • booklets,
  • bookmarks,
  • envelope designs,
  • signs,
  • letterheads,
  • posters,
  • CD cover,
  • print media design templates,
  • and more.

The goal of print design is to use visual graphics to communicate a specific message to viewers.


See also:







Emails including Email Checklist:Pictured below: Email Operation (By Yzmo, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3052180)
​Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving messages using electronic devices. It was conceived in the late–20th century as the digital version of, or counterpart to, mail (hence e- + mail).

Email is a ubiquitous and very widely used communication medium; in current use, an email address is often treated as a basic and necessary part of many processes in business, commerce, government, education, entertainment, and other spheres of daily life in most countries.

Email operates across computer networks, primarily the Internet, and also local area networks. Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward model.

​Email servers accept, forward, deliver, and store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously; they need to connect, typically to a mail server or a webmail interface to send or receive messages or download it.

Originally an ASCII text-only communications medium, Internet email was extended by Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) to carry text in other character sets and multimedia content attachments. International email, with internationalized email addresses using UTF-8, is standardized but not widely adopted.


Terminology:
Further information: History of email § Terminology and usage

The term electronic mail has been in use with its modern meaning since 1975, and variations of the shorter E-mail have been in use since 1979:
  • email is now the common form, and recommended by style guides. It is the form required by IETF Requests for Comments (RFC) and working groups. This spelling also appears in most dictionaries.
  • e-mail is the form favored in edited published American English and British English writing as reflected in the Corpus of Contemporary American English data, but is falling out of favor in some style guides.
  • E-mail is sometimes used. The original usage in June 1979 occurred in the journal Electronics in reference to the United States Postal Service initiative called E-COM, which was developed in the late 1970s and operated in the early 1980s.
  • Email is also used.
  • EMAIL was used by CompuServe starting in April 1981, which popularized the term.
  • EMail is a traditional form used in RFCs for the "Author's Address".
The service is often simply referred to as mail, and a single piece of electronic mail is called a message. The conventions for fields within emails—the "To", "From", "CC", "BCC" etc.—began with RFC-680 in 1975.

An Internet email consists of an envelope and content; the content consists of a header and a body.


History:
Main article: History of email

Computer-based messaging between users of the same system became possible after the advent of time-sharing in the early 1960s, with a notable implementation by MIT's CTSS project in 1965. 

Most developers of early mainframes and minicomputers developed similar, but generally incompatible, mail applications. In 1971 the first ARPANET network mail was sent, introducing the now-familiar address syntax with the '@' symbol designating the user's system address. Over a series of RFCs, conventions were refined for sending mail messages over the File Transfer Protocol.

Proprietary electronic mail systems soon began to emerge: 

IBM, CompuServe and Xerox used in-house mail systems in the 1970s; CompuServe sold a commercial intraoffice mail product in 1978 to IBM and to Xerox from 1981. 

DEC's ALL-IN-1 and Hewlett-Packard's HPMAIL (later HP DeskManager) were released in 1982; development work on the former began in the late 1970s and the latter became the world's largest selling email system.

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) protocol was implemented on the ARPANET in 1983. LAN email systems emerged in the mid 1980s.

For a time in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it seemed likely that either a proprietary commercial system or the X.400 email system, part of the Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile (GOSIP), would predominate.

However, once the final restrictions on carrying commercial traffic over the Internet ended in 1995, a combination of factors made the current Internet suite of SMTP, POP3 and IMAP email protocols the standard (see Protocol Wars).

​
Operation:

The following is a typical sequence of events that takes place when sender Alice transmits a message using a mail user agent (MUA) addressed to the email address of the recipient.
​
  1. The MUA formats the message in email format and uses the submission protocol, a profile of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), to send the message content to the local mail submission agent (MSA), in this case smtp.a.org.
  2. The MSA determines the destination address provided in the SMTP protocol (not from the message header)—in this case, [email protected]—which is a fully qualified domain address (FQDA). The part before the @ sign is the local part of the address, often the username of the recipient, and the part after the @ sign is a domain name. The MSA resolves a domain name to determine the fully qualified domain name of the mail server in the Domain Name System (DNS).
  3. The DNS server for the domain b.org (ns.b.org) responds with any MX records listing the mail exchange servers for that domain, in this case mx.b.org, a message transfer agent (MTA) server run by the recipient's ISP.​smtp.a.org sends the message to mx.b.org using SMTP. This server may need to forward the message to other MTAs before the message reaches the final message delivery agent (MDA).
  4. The MDA delivers it to the mailbox of user bob.
  5. Bob's MUA picks up the message using either the Post Office Protocol (POP3) or the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP).

In addition to this example, alternatives and complications exist in the email system:
  • Alice or Bob may use a client connected to a corporate email system, such as IBM Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange. These systems often have their own internal email format and their clients typically communicate with the email server using a vendor-specific, proprietary protocol. The server sends or receives email via the Internet through the product's Internet mail gateway which also does any necessary reformatting. If Alice and Bob work for the same company, the entire transaction may happen completely within a single corporate email system.
  • Alice may not have an MUA on her computer but instead may connect to a webmail service.
  • Alice's computer may run its own MTA, so avoiding the transfer at step 1.
  • Bob may pick up his email in many ways, for example logging into mx.b.org and reading it directly, or by using a webmail service.
  • Domains usually have several mail exchange servers so that they can continue to accept mail even if the primary is not available.

Many MTAs used to accept messages for any recipient on the Internet and do their best to deliver them. Such MTAs are called open mail relays. This was very important in the early days of the Internet when network connections were unreliable. However, this mechanism proved to be exploitable by originators of unsolicited bulk email and as a consequence open mail relays have become rare, and many MTAs do not accept messages from open mail relays.


Message format:

The basic Internet message format used for email is defined by RFC 5322, with encoding of non-ASCII data and multimedia content attachments defined in RFC 2045 through RFC 2049, collectively called Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions or MIME.

The extensions in International email apply only to email. RFC 5322 replaced the earlier RFC 2822 in 2008, then RFC 2822 in 2001 replaced RFC 822 – the standard for Internet email for decades. Published in 1982, RFC 822 was based on the earlier RFC 733 for the ARPANET.

Internet email messages consist of two sections, "header" and "body". These are known as "content". The header is structured into fields such as From, To, CC, Subject, Date, and other information about the email.

In the process of transporting email messages between systems, SMTP communicates delivery parameters and information using message header fields. The body contains the message, as unstructured text, sometimes containing a signature block at the end. The header is separated from the body by a blank line.

Message header:

RFC 5322 specifies the syntax of the email header. Each email message has a header (the "header section" of the message, according to the specification), comprising a number of fields ("header fields"). Each field has a name ("field name" or "header field name"), followed by the separator character ":", and a value ("field body" or "header field body").

Each field name begins in the first character of a new line in the header section, and begins with a non-whitespace printable character. It ends with the separator character ":". The separator is followed by the field value (the "field body"). The value can continue onto subsequent lines if those lines have space or tab as their first character. Field names and, without SMTPUTF8, field bodies are restricted to 7-bit ASCII characters. Some non-ASCII values may be represented using MIME encoded words.

Header fields:

Email header fields can be multi-line, with each line recommended to be no more than 78 characters, although the limit is 998 characters. Header fields defined by RFC 5322 contain only US-ASCII characters; for encoding characters in other sets, a syntax specified in RFC 2047 may be used. 

​In some examples, the IETF EAI working group defines some standards track extensions, replacing previous experimental extensions so UTF-8 encoded Unicode characters may be used within the header. In particular, this allows email addresses to use non-ASCII characters. Such addresses are supported by Google and Microsoft products, and promoted by some government agents.

The message header must include at least the following fields:
  • From: The email address, and, optionally, the name of the author(s). Some email clients are changeable through account settings.
  • Date: The local time and date the message was written. Like the From: field, many email clients fill this in automatically before sending. The recipient's client may display the time in the format and time zone local to them.
RFC 3864 describes registration procedures for message header fields at the IANA; it provides for permanent and provisional field names, including also fields defined for MIME, netnews, and HTTP, and referencing relevant RFCs. Common header fields for email include:
  • To: The email address(es), and optionally name(s) of the message's recipient(s). Indicates primary recipients (multiple allowed), for secondary recipients see Cc: and Bcc: below.
  • Subject: A brief summary of the topic of the message. Certain abbreviations are commonly used in the subject, including "RE:" and "FW:".
  • Cc: Carbon copy; Many email clients mark email in one's inbox differently depending on whether they are in the To: or Cc: list.
  • Bcc: Blind carbon copy; addresses are usually only specified during SMTP delivery, and not usually listed in the message header.
  • Content-Type: Information about how the message is to be displayed, usually a MIME type.
  • Precedence: commonly with values "bulk", "junk", or "list"; used to indicate automated "vacation" or "out of office" responses should not be returned for this mail, e.g. to prevent vacation notices from sent to all other subscribers of a mailing list. Sendmail uses this field to affect prioritization of queued email, with "Precedence: special-delivery" messages delivered sooner. With modern high-bandwidth networks, delivery priority is less of an issue than it was. Microsoft Exchange respects a fine-grained automatic response suppression mechanism, the X-Auto-Response-Suppress field.
  • Message-ID: Also an automatic-generated field to prevent multiple deliveries and for reference in In-Reply-To: (see below).
  • In-Reply-To: Message-ID of the message this is a reply to. Used to link related messages together. This field only applies to reply messages.
  • List-Unsubscribe: HTTP link to unsubscribe from a mailing list.
  • References: Message-ID of the message this is a reply to, and the message-id of the message the previous reply was a reply to, etc.
  • Reply-To: Address should be used to reply to the message.
  • Sender: Address of the sender acting on behalf of the author listed in the From: field (secretary, list manager, etc.).
  • Archived-At: A direct link to the archived form of an individual email message.

The To: field may be unrelated to the addresses to which the message is delivered. The delivery list is supplied separately to the transport protocol, SMTP, which may be extracted from the header content.

The "To:" field is similar to the addressing at the top of a conventional letter delivered according to the address on the outer envelope. In the same way, the "From:" field may not be the sender. Some mail servers apply email authentication systems to messages relayed.

Data pertaining to the server's activity is also part of the header, as defined below.
SMTP defines the trace information of a message saved in the header using the following two fields:
  • Received: after an SMTP server accepts a message, it inserts this trace record at the top of the header (last to first).
  • Return-Path: after the delivery SMTP server makes the final delivery of a message, it inserts this field at the top of the header.

Other fields added on top of the header by the receiving server may be called trace fields.
  • Authentication-Results: after a server verifies authentication, it can save the results in this field for consumption by downstream agents.
  • Received-SPF: stores results of SPF checks in more detail than Authentication-Results.
  • DKIM-Signature: stores results of DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) decryption to verify the message was not changed after it was sent.
  • Auto-Submitted: is used to mark automatic-generated messages.
  • VBR-Info: claims VBR whitelisting

Message body:

Content encoding: Internet email was designed for 7-bit ASCII. Most email software is 8-bit clean, but must assume it will communicate with 7-bit servers and mail readers.

The MIME standard introduced character set specifiers and two content transfer encodings to enable transmission of non-ASCII data: quoted printable for mostly 7-bit content with a few characters outside that range and base64 for arbitrary binary data.

The 8BITMIME and BINARY extensions were introduced to allow transmission of mail without the need for these encodings, but many mail transport agents may not support them.

In some countries, e-mail software violates RFC 5322 by sending raw non-ASCII text and several encoding schemes co-exist; as a result, by default, the message in a non-Latin alphabet language appears in non-readable form (the only exception is a coincidence if the sender and receiver use the same encoding scheme). Therefore, for international character sets, Unicode is growing in popularity.

​Plain text and HTML:

Most modern graphic email clients allow the use of either plain text or HTML for the message body at the option of the user. HTML email messages often include an automatic-generated plain text copy for compatibility.

Advantages of HTML include the ability to include in-line links and images, set apart previous messages in block quotes, wrap naturally on any display, use emphasis such as underlines and italics, and change font styles.

Disadvantages include the increased size of the email, privacy concerns about web bugs, abuse of HTML email as a vector for phishing attacks and the spread of malicious software. Some e-mail clients interpret the body as HTML even in the absence of a Content-Type: html header field; this may cause various problems.

Some web-based mailing lists recommend all posts be made in plain text, with 72 or 80 characters per line for all the above reasons, and because they have a significant number of readers using text-based email clients such as Mutt. Various informal conventions evolved for marking up plain text in email and usenet posts, which later led to the development of formal languages like setext (c. 1992) and many others, the most popular of them being markdown.

Some Microsoft email clients may allow rich formatting using their proprietary Rich Text Format (RTF), but this should be avoided unless the recipient is guaranteed to have a compatible email client.


Servers and client applications

​Messages are exchanged between hosts using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol with software programs called mail transfer agents (MTAs); and delivered to a mail store by programs called mail delivery agents (MDAs, also sometimes called local delivery agents, LDAs). Accepting a message obliges an MTA to deliver it, and when a message cannot be delivered, that MTA must send a bounce message back to the sender, indicating the problem.

Users can retrieve their messages from servers using standard protocols such as POP or IMAP, or, as is more likely in a large corporate environment, with a proprietary protocol specific to Novell Groupwise, Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange Servers. Programs used by users for retrieving, reading, and managing email are called mail user agents (MUAs).

​When opening an email, it is marked as "read", which typically visibly distinguishes it from "unread" messages on clients' user interfaces. Email clients may allow hiding read emails from the inbox so the user can focus on the unread.

Mail can be stored on the client, on the server side, or in both places. Standard formats for mailboxes include Maildir and mbox. Several prominent email clients use their own proprietary format and require conversion software to transfer email between them. Server-side storage is often in a proprietary format but since access is through a standard protocol such as IMAP, moving email from one server to another can be done with any MUA supporting the protocol.

Many current email users do not run MTA, MDA or MUA programs themselves, but use a web-based email platform, such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, that performs the same tasks. Such webmail interfaces allow users to access their mail with any standard web browser, from any computer, rather than relying on a local email client.

Filename extensions:

Upon reception of email messages, email client applications save messages in operating system files in the file system. Some clients save individual messages as separate files, while others use various database formats, often proprietary, for collective storage. A historical standard of storage is the mbox format. The specific format used is often indicated by special filename extensions:

eml: Used by many email clients including: 
The files contain the email contents as plain text in MIME format, containing the email header and body, including attachments in one or more of several formats.

emlx: Used by Apple Mail.

msg: Used by Microsoft Office Outlook and OfficeLogic Groupware.

mbx: Used by Opera Mail, KMail, and Apple Mail based on the mbox format.Some applications (like Apple Mail) leave attachments encoded in messages for searching while also saving separate copies of the attachments. Others separate attachments from messages and save them in a specific directory.


URI scheme mailto:
Main article: mailto

The URI scheme, as registered with the IANA, defines the mailto: scheme for SMTP email addresses. Though its use is not strictly defined, URLs of this form are intended to be used to open the new message window of the user's mail client when the URL is activated, with the address as defined by the URL in the To: field. 

Many clients also support query string parameters for the other email fields, such as its subject line or carbon copy recipients.


Types:

Web-based email:
Main article: Webmail

Many email providers have a web-based email client. This allows users to log into the email account by using any compatible web browser to send and receive their email. Mail is typically not downloaded to the web client, so it cannot be read without a current Internet connection.

POP3 email servers:

The Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) is a mail access protocol used by a client application to read messages from the mail server. Received messages are often deleted from the server.

POP supports simple download-and-delete requirements for access to remote mailboxes (termed maildrop in the POP RFC's). POP3 allows downloading messages on a local computer and reading them even when offline.

IMAP email servers:

The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) provides features to manage a mailbox from multiple devices. Small portable devices like smartphones are increasingly used to check email while traveling and to make brief replies, larger devices with better keyboard access being used to reply at greater length. IMAP shows the headers of messages, the sender and the subject and the device needs to request to download specific messages. Usually, the mail is left in folders in the mail server.

MAPI email servers:

Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) is used by Microsoft Outlook to communicate to Microsoft Exchange Server—and to a range of other email server products such as:  where vendors have added MAPI support to allow their products to be accessed directly via Outlook.


Uses:
​
Business and organizational use:

Email has been widely accepted by businesses, governments and non-governmental organizations in the developed world, and it is one of the key parts of an 'e-revolution' in workplace communication (with the other key plank being widespread adoption of highspeed Internet).

A sponsored 2010 study on workplace communication found 83% of U.S. knowledge workers felt email was critical to their success and productivity at work.

It has some key benefits to business and other organizations, including:
  • Facilitating logistics: Much of the business world relies on communications between people who are not physically in the same building, area, or even country; setting up and attending an in-person meeting, telephone call, or conference call can be inconvenient, time-consuming, and costly. Email provides a method of exchanging information between two or more people with no set-up costs and that is generally far less expensive than a physical meeting or phone call.
  • Helping with synchronization:  With real time communication by meetings or phone calls, participants must work on the same schedule, and each participant must spend the same amount of time in the meeting or call. Email allows asynchrony: each participant may control their schedule independently. Batch processing of incoming emails can improve workflow compared to interrupting calls.
  • Reducing cost:  Sending an email is much less expensive than sending postal mail, or long distance telephone calls, telex or telegrams.
  • Increasing speed:  Much faster than most of the alternatives.
  • Creating a "written" record: Unlike a telephone or in-person conversation, email by its nature creates a detailed written record of the communication, the identity of the sender(s) and recipient(s) and the date and time the message was sent. In the event of a contract or legal dispute, saved emails can be used to prove that an individual was advised of certain issues, as each email has the date and time recorded on it.
  • Possibility of auto-processing and improved distribution: As well pre-processing of customer's orders or addressing the person in charge can be realized by automated procedures.

Email marketing: 

Email marketing via "opt-in" is often successfully used to send special sales offerings and new product information. Depending on the recipient's culture, email sent without permission—such as an "opt-in"—is likely to be viewed as unwelcome "email spam".


Personal use:

Personal computer:

Many users access their personal emails from friends and family members using a personal computer in their house or apartment.

Mobile:

Email has become used on smartphones and on all types of computers. Mobile "apps" for email increase accessibility to the medium for users who are out of their homes.

While in the earliest years of email, users could only access email on desktop computers, in the 2010s, it is possible for users to check their email when they are away from home, whether they are across town or across the world.

Alerts can also be sent to the smartphone or other devices to notify them immediately of new messages. This has given email the ability to be used for more frequent communication between users and allowed them to check their email and write messages throughout the day.

As of 2011, there were approximately 1.4 billion email users worldwide and 50 billion non-spam emails that were sent daily.

Individuals often check emails on smartphones for both personal and work-related messages.

It was found that US adults check their email more than they browse the web or check their Facebook accounts, making email the most popular activity for users to do on their smartphones.

78% of the respondents in the study revealed that they check their email on their phone. It was also found that 30% of consumers use only their smartphone to check their email, and 91% were likely to check their email at least once per day on their smartphone.

However, the percentage of consumers using email on a smartphone ranges and differs dramatically across different countries. For example, in comparison to 75% of those consumers in the US who used it, only 17% in India did.

Declining use among young people:

As of 2010, the number of Americans visiting email web sites had fallen 6 percent after peaking in November 2009. For persons 12 to 17, the number was down 18 percent.

Young people preferred instant messaging, texting and social media. Technology writer Matt Richtel said in The New York Times that email was like the VCR, vinyl records and film cameras—no longer cool and something older people do.

A 2015 survey of Android users showed that persons 13 to 24 used messaging apps 3.5 times as much as those over 45, and were far less likely to use email.


Issues:

​Attachment size limitation:
Main article: Email attachment

Email messages may have one or more attachments, which are additional files that are appended to the email. Typical attachments include Microsoft Word documents, PDF documents, and scanned images of paper documents.

In principle, there is no technical restriction on the size or number of attachments. However, in practice, email clients, servers, and Internet service providers implement various limitations on the size of files, or complete email – typically to 25MB or less. 

Furthermore, due to technical reasons, attachment sizes as seen by these transport systems can differ from what the user sees, which can be confusing to senders when trying to assess whether they can safely send a file by email. Where larger files need to be shared, various file hosting services are available and commonly used.

Information overload:

The ubiquity of email for knowledge workers and "white collar" employees has led to concerns that recipients face an "information overload" in dealing with increasing volumes of email. 

With the growth in mobile devices, by default employees may also receive work-related emails outside of their working day. This can lead to increased stress and decreased satisfaction with work. Some observers even argue it could have a significant negative economic effect, as efforts to read the many emails could reduce productivity.

Spam:
Main article: Email spam

Email "spam" is unsolicited bulk email. The low cost of sending such email meant that, by 2003, up to 30% of total email traffic was spam, and was threatening the usefulness of email as a practical tool. The US CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and similar laws elsewhere had some impact, and a number of effective anti-spam techniques now largely mitigate the impact of spam by filtering or rejecting it for most users, but the volume sent is still very high—and increasingly consists not of advertisements for products, but malicious content or links.

In September 2017, for example, the proportion of spam to legitimate email rose to 59.56%. The percentage of spam email in 2021 is estimated to be 85%.

Malware:

A range of malicious email types exist. These range from various types of email scams, including "social engineering" scams such as advance-fee scam "Nigerian letters", to phishing, email bombardment and email worms.
​
​Email spoofing:
Main article: Email spoofing

Email spoofing occurs when the email message header is designed to make the message appear to come from a known or trusted source. 

Email spam and phishing methods typically use spoofing to mislead the recipient about the true message origin. Email spoofing may be done as a prank, or as part of a criminal effort to defraud an individual or organization.

An example of a potentially fraudulent email spoofing is if an individual creates an email that appears to be an invoice from a major company, and then sends it to one or more recipients.

In some cases, these fraudulent emails incorporate the logo of the purported organization and even the email address may appear legitimate.

Email bombing:
Main article: Email bomb

Email bombing is the intentional sending of large volumes of messages to a target address. The overloading of the target email address can render it unusable and can even cause the mail server to crash.

Privacy concerns:
Main article: Email privacy

Today it can be important to distinguish between the Internet and internal email systems. Internet email may travel and be stored on networks and computers without the sender's or the recipient's control. During the transit time it is possible that third parties read or even modify the content.

Internal mail systems, in which the information never leaves the organizational network, may be more secure, although information technology personnel and others whose function may involve monitoring or managing may be accessing the email of other employees.

Email privacy, without some security precautions, can be compromised because:
  • email messages are generally not encrypted.
  • email messages have to go through intermediate computers before reaching their destination, meaning it is relatively easy for others to intercept and read messages.
  • many Internet Service Providers (ISP) store copies of email messages on their mail servers before they are delivered. The backups of these can remain for up to several months on their server, despite deletion from the mailbox.
  • the "Received:"-fields and other information in the email can often identify the sender, preventing anonymous communication.
  • web bugs invisibly embedded in HTML content can alert the sender of any email whenever an email is rendered as HTML (some e-mail clients do this when the user reads, or re-reads the e-mail) and from which IP address. It can also reveal whether an email was read on a smartphone or a PC, or Apple Mac device via the user agent string.

There are cryptography applications that can serve as a remedy to one or more of the above. For example, Virtual Private Networks or the Tor network can be used to encrypt traffic from the user machine to a safer network while GPG, PGP, SMEmail, or S/MIME can be used for end-to-end message encryption, and SMTP STARTTLS or SMTP over Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer can be used to encrypt communications for a single mail hop between the SMTP client and the SMTP server.

Additionally, many mail user agents do not protect logins and passwords, making them easy to intercept by an attacker. Encrypted authentication schemes such as SASL prevent this.

Finally, the attached files share many of the same hazards as those found in peer-to-peer filesharing. Attached files may contain trojans or viruses.

Legal contracts:

​It is possible for an exchange of emails to form a binding contract, so users must be careful about what they send through email correspondence. A signature block on an email may be interpreted as satisfying a signature requirement for a contract.

Flaming:

Flaming occurs when a person sends a message (or many messages) with angry or antagonistic content. The term is derived from the use of the word incendiary to describe particularly heated email discussions. The ease and impersonality of email communications mean that the social norms that encourage civility in person or via telephone do not exist and civility may be forgotten.
​
Email bankruptcy:
Main article: Email bankruptcy

Also known as "email fatigue", email bankruptcy is when a user ignores a large number of email messages after falling behind in reading and answering them. The reason for falling behind is often due to information overload and a general sense there is so much information that it is not possible to read it all.

As a solution, people occasionally send a "boilerplate" message explaining that their email inbox is full, and that they are in the process of clearing out all the messages. Harvard University law professor Lawrence Lessig is credited with coining this term, but he may only have popularized it.
​
Internationalization:

Originally Internet email was completely ASCII text-based. MIME now allows body content text and some header content text in international character sets, but other headers and email addresses using UTF-8, while standardized have yet to be widely adopted.

Further information: International email and Email address § Internationalization

Tracking of sent mail:

The original SMTP mail service provides limited mechanisms for tracking a transmitted message, and none for verifying that it has been delivered or read. It requires that each mail server must either deliver it onward or return a failure notice (bounce message), but both software bugs and system failures can cause messages to be lost.

To remedy this, the IETF introduced Delivery Status Notifications (delivery receipts) and Message Disposition Notifications (return receipts); however, these are not universally deployed in production.

Many ISPs now deliberately disable non-delivery reports (NDRs) and delivery receipts due to the activities of spammers:
  • Delivery Reports can be used to verify whether an address exists and if so, this indicates to a spammer that it is available to be spammed.
  • If the spammer uses a forged sender email address (email spoofing), then the innocent email address that was used can be flooded with NDRs from the many invalid email addresses the spammer may have attempted to mail. These NDRs then constitute spam from the ISP to the innocent user.

In the absence of standard methods, a range of system based around the use of web bugs have been developed. However, these are often seen as underhand or raising privacy concerns, and only work with email clients that support rendering of HTML.

Many mail clients now default to not showing "web content". Webmail providers can also disrupt web bugs by pre-caching images.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

Email Checklist (Wikiversity)

Use this checklist to avoid common email errors, and improve your email communications:
  • Mode—Is email the best communication mode to choose for this message? Would a text message, phone call, video chat, personal visit, card, letter, silence, or handwritten note be more effective?
  • Recipients—Consider carefully who should receive this message. Use these fields and commands carefully:
    • To: Carefully identify the email of the person this message is directed to. This is the person who is requested to act on this message.
    • CC: If others would benefit from receiving this message, include them here. CC is for people who need to be kept in the know.
    • BCC: “Blind Copy” If there is good reason to hide the identity of other recipients, include them here rather than in CC.
    • Reply: Use “Reply” to reply only to the originator of this email message.
    • Reply all: Use this option carefully and sparingly to avoid sharing your message unnecessarily or inadvertently with all the recipients of the original message.
  • Nonrecipients—Don’t send email to people who will be annoyed by the message. Don’t disclose private information carelessly. Avoid including copies of peer level communications to the boss. Include the boss if you are praising other recipients. Omit the boss if you are critical of recipients or working to resolve conflict.
  • Subject—Choose the language of the subject line carefully. Provide a clear and accurate synopsis. Use the subject line to provide context, clarify intent, or suggest what may be expected of the recipient.
  • Copy Editing—Take care to avoid or correct spelling, word use, grammar, and punctuation errors.
    • Spelling—Check the spelling. Use a spell checker.
    • Word use—Double check the meaning of any words you are unsure of. Look them up to ensure they mean what you want to communicate. Be particularly careful to check words that have been autocorrected.
    • Punctuation—Check the grammar and punctuation. Use a grammar checker.
  • Call to action—What, if any, engagement are you expecting of the recipient? Is this message being sent for entertainment, sharing information, asking a question, assigning a task, suggesting some action, or are you trolling, annoying, gossiping, gloating, harassing, bullying, or bloviating? In business emails it can be helpful to include a one line summary and call to action near the top of the message. Other emails may include some suggested action later in the message. Does the recipient have all the information they need to take the requested action?
  • Message—Communicate clearly, carefully, completely, and purposefully.
    • Purpose—Why are you sending this message? Are you sharing information, asking a question, posing a problem, proposing a solution, or simply spreading rumors and gossip? What do you want to have happen as a result of this message? What else might happen? Will this message have a positive impact? Do not send email unless you can improve on silence.
    • Style—Separate personal and professional messages and styles. Don’t use personal email language or styles in professional messages, and vice versa.
    • Clarity—Good writing is clear thinking made visible. Is this message based on clear thinking? Is the thought clear? Is the language clear? How can the message be made more valuable? Can you avoid sending this email by answering your own question, or doing your own research or investigation?
    • Whose problem is this?—If this is your problem to solve, or you can take action to solve the problem, don’t pass it on. Respect the recipient’s time, attention, and privacy.
    • Cool Heads—Don’t click send while you are angry, distracted, impatient, tired, under the influence, or in some altered state of consciousness. Wait overnight to reconsider and re-read sensitive, provocative, upsetting, or especially important email messages. If this email appeared in a public forum, or the front page of the newspaper, would that be OK?
    • Improved text—Consider using a tool such as ChatGPT to suggest improvements to the text.
  • Privacy—Ensure the privacy of yourself and others, and carefully protect confidential, sensitive, or other protected information. Email privacy breaches have ruined careers.
  • Security—Assume your email messages are not secure. Do not sent passwords, account numbers, or other sensitive information over email. Learn to recognize spam, phishing, social engineering, and other confidence tricks. Don’t engage with these traps, report them.
  • Good Faith—Take care to communicate in good faith. Be impeccable with your word. Advance no falsehoods. Consider if this communication is true, helpful, and kind. Is the email respectful to recipients and others? If not, then don’t send it.
  • Attachments—If you mention an attachment in the message, be sure to include that attachment. Because attachments are often bulky, don’t include them unnecessarily. Use a link to a shared document or on-line resource rather than attaching a copy when practical.
  • Netiquette—Use good manners and exercise civility. Begin with a respectful greeting. End by thanking the recipients. Use respectful language throughout.

Use the above checklist to avoid common email errors and improve your email communications.








​Communications in all its Forms Pictured below: ​There are many forms of communication, including human linguistic communication using sounds, hand gestures when speaking with others, sign language, and written signs, animals exchanging information, and attempts to communicate with intelligent extraterrestrial life
Communication (from Latin: communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquiry studying them. There are many disagreements about its precise definition. 

John Peters argues that the difficulty of defining communication emerges from the fact that communication is both a universal phenomenon and a specific discipline of institutional academic study. 

One definitional strategy involves limiting what can be included in the category of communication (for example, requiring a "conscious intent" to persuade). By this logic, one possible definition of communication is the act of developing meaning among entities or groups through the use of sufficiently mutually understood signs, symbols, and semiotic conventions.

An important distinction is between verbal communication, which happens through the use of a language, and non-verbal communication, for example, through gestures or facial expressions. Models of communication try to provide a detailed explanation of the different steps and entities involved.

An influential model is given by Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, who argue that communicative motivation prompts the sender to compose a message, which is then encoded and transmitted. Once it has reached its destination, it is decoded and interpreted by the receiver. 

Communication is studied in various fields. Information theory investigates the quantification, storage, and communication of information in general. Communication studies is concerned with human communication, while the science of biocommunication is interested in any form of communication between living organisms.

Communication can be realized visually (through images and written language) and through auditory, tactile/haptic (e.g. Braille or other physical means), olfactory, electromagnetic, or biochemical means (or any combination thereof).

Human communication is unique in its extensive use of abstract language.

Definitions:

Communication is usually understood as the transmission of information. In this regard, a message is conveyed from a sender to a receiver using some form of medium, such as sound, paper, bodily movements, or electrical means, e.g., television. 

In a different sense, the term "communication" can also refer just to the message that is being communicated or to the field of inquiry studying such transmissions. There is a lot of disagreement concerning the precise characterization of communication and various scholars have raised doubts that any single definition can capture the term accurately. These difficulties come from the fact that the term is applied to diverse phenomena in different contexts, often with slightly different meanings. 

Despite these problems, the question of the right definition is of great theoretical importance since it affects the research process on all levels. This includes issues like which empirical phenomena are observed, how they are categorized, which hypotheses and laws are formulated as well as how systematic theories based on these steps are articulated. The word "communication" has its root in the Latin verb "communicare", which means "to share" or "to make common".

Some theorists give very broad definitions of communication that encompass unconscious and non-human behavior. In this regard, many animals communicate within their own species and even plants like flowers may be said to communicate by attracting bees.

Other researchers restrict communication to conscious interactions among human beings. Some definitions focus on the use of symbols and signs while others emphasize the role of understanding, interaction, power, or transmission of ideas. Various characterizations see the communicator's intent to send a message as a central component.

On this view, the transmission of information is not sufficient for communication if it happens unintentionally. An important version of this view is given by Paul Grice, who identifies communication with actions that aim to make the recipient aware of the communicator's intention. 

One question in this regard is whether only the successful transmission of information should be regarded as communication. For example, distortion may interfere and change the actual message from what was originally intended. A closely related problem is whether acts of deliberate deception constitute communication.

According to an influential and broad definition by I. A. Richards, communication happens when one mind acts upon its environment in order to transmit its own experience to another mind. 

Another important characterization is due to Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver. On their view, communication involves the interaction of several components, such as a source, a message, an encoder, a channel, a decoder, and a receiver. The paradigmatic form of communication happens between two or several individuals. However, it can also take place on a larger level, for example, between organizations, social classes, or nations. 

Niklas Luhmann rejects the view that communication is, on its most fundamental level, an interaction between two distinct parties. Instead, he holds that "only communication can communicate" and tries to provide a conceptualization in terms of autopoietic systems without any reference to consciousness or life. 

John Peters sees communication as "an apparent answer to the painful divisions between self and other, private and public, and inner thought and outer world."

Communication models:
Main article: Models of communication

Models of communication are conceptual representations of the process of communication. Their goal is to provide a simplified overview of its main components. This makes it easier for researchers to formulate hypotheses, apply communication-related concepts to real-world cases, and test predictions. 

However, it is often argued that many models lack the conceptual complexity needed for a comprehensive understanding of all the essential aspects of communication. They are usually presented visually in the form of diagrams showing various basic components and their interaction.

Models of communication are often categorized based on their intended applications and how they conceptualize communication. Some models are general in the sense that they are intended for all forms of communication. They contrast with specialized models, which aim to describe only certain forms of communication, like models of mass communication. 

An influential classification distinguishes between linear transmission models, interaction models, and transaction models. Linear transmission models focus on how a sender transmits information to a receiver. They are linear because this flow of information only goes in one direction. This view is rejected by interaction models, which include a feedback loop.

Feedback is required to describe many forms of communication, such as a regular conversation, where the listener may respond by expressing their opinion on the issue or by asking for clarification. For interaction models, communication is a two-way-process in which the communicators take turns in sending and receiving messages.

Transaction models further refine this picture by allowing sending and responding to happen at the same time. This modification is needed, for example, to describe how the listener in a face-to-face conversation gives non-verbal feedback through their body posture and their facial expressions while the other person is talking. Transaction models also hold that meaning is produced during communication and does not exist independent of it.

All the early models, developed in the middle of the 20th century, are linear transmission models. Lasswell's model, for example, is based on five fundamental questions: "Who?", "Says What?", "In What Channel?", "To Whom?", and "With What Effect?". The goal of these questions is to identify the basic components involved in the communicative process: the sender, the message, the channel, the receiver, and the effect. 

Lasswell's model was initially only conceived as a model of mass communication, but it has been applied to various other fields as well. Some theorists have expanded it by including additional questions, like "Under What Circumstances?" and "For What Purpose?".

The Shannon–Weaver model is another influential linear transmission model. It is based on the idea that a source creates a message, which is then translated into a signal by a transmitter. Noise may interfere and distort the signal. Once the signal reaches the receiver, it is translated back into a message and made available to the destination.

For a landline telephone call, the person calling is the source and their telephone is the transmitter. It translates the message into an electrical signal that travels through the wire, which acts as the channel. The person taking the call is the destination and their telephone is the receiver. 

The Shannon–Weaver model includes an in-depth discussion of how noise can distort the signal and how successful communication can be achieved despite noise. This can happen, for example, by making the message partially redundant so that decoding is possible nonetheless. Other influential linear transmission models include Gerbner's model and Berlo's model.

The earliest interaction model is due to Wilbur Schramm. For him, communication starts when a source has an idea and expresses it in the form of a message. This process is called encoding and happens using a code, i.e. a sign system that is able to express the idea, for example, through visual or auditory signs. 

The message is sent to a destination, who has to decode and interpret it in order to understand it. In response, they formulate their own idea, encode it into a message and send it back as a form of feedback. Another important innovation of Schramm's model is that previous experience is necessary to be able to encode and decode messages. For communication to be successful, the fields of experience of source and destination have to overlap.

The first transactional model was proposed by Dean Barnlund. He understands communication as "the production of meaning, rather than the production of messages". Its goal is to decrease uncertainty and arrive at a shared understanding. This happens in response to external and internal cues. Decoding is the process of ascribing meaning to them and encoding consists in producing new behavioral cues as a response.

Human:

There are many forms of human communication. Important distinctions concern whether language is used, as in the contrast between verbal and non-verbal communication, and whether one communicates with others or with oneself, as in the contrast between interpersonal and intrapersonal communication. The field studying human communication is known as anthroposemiotics.

Mediums:

Verbal:
Main article: Linguistics

Verbal communication refers to the exchange of messages in linguistic form or by means of language. Some of the difficulties in distinguishing verbal from non-verbal communication come from the difficulties in defining what exactly language means.

Language is usually understood as a conventional system of symbols and rules used for communication. Important in this regard is that the system is based on a set of simple units of meaning that can be combined with each other to express more complex ideas. The rules for combining the units into compound expressions are called grammar. This way, words are combined to form sentences. 

One hallmark of human language, in contrast to animal communication, lies in its complexity and expressive power. For example, it can be used to refer not just to concrete objects in the here-and-now but also to spatially and temporally distant objects and to abstract ideas. 

The academic discipline studying language is called linguistics. Important subfields include semantics (the study of meaning), morphology (the study of word formation), syntax (the study of sentence structure), pragmatics (the study of language use), and phonetics (the study of basic sounds).

An important distinction among languages is between natural and artificial or constructed languages. Natural languages, like English, Spanish, and Japanese, developed naturally and for the most part unplanned in the course of history.

Artificial languages, like Esperanto, the language of first-order logic, C++, and Quenya, are purposefully designed from the ground up. Most everyday verbal communication happens using natural languages.

The most important forms of verbal communication are speech and writing together with their counterparts of listening and reading. Spoken languages use sounds to produce signs and transmit meaning while for writing, the signs are physically inscribed on a surface. 

Sign languages, like American Sign Language, are another form of verbal communication. They rely on visual means, mostly by using gestures with hands and arms, to form sentences and convey meaning. 

In colloquial usage, verbal communication is sometimes restricted to oral communication and may exclude writing and sign languages. However, in the academic sense, the term is usually used in a wider sense and encompasses any form of linguistic communication, independent of whether the language is expressed through speech, writing, or gestures. 

Humans have a natural tendency to acquire their native language in childhood. They are also able to learn other languages later in life, so-called second languages. But this process is less intuitive and often does not result in the same level of linguistic competence.

Verbal communication serves various functions. One important function is to exchange information, i.e. an attempt by the speaker to make the audience aware of something, usually of an external event. But language can also be used to express the speaker's feelings and attitudes. A closely related role is to establish and maintain social relations with other people.

Verbal communication is also utilized to coordinate one's behavior with others and influence them. In some cases, language is not employed for an external purpose but only for entertainment or because it is enjoyable. 

​One aspect of verbal communication that stands out in comparison to non-verbal communication is that it helps the communicators conceptualize the world around them and themselves. This affects how perceptions of external events are interpreted, how things are categorized, and how ideas are organized and related to each other.

​Non-verbal:
Main article: Non-verbal communication

Non-verbal communication refers to the exchange of information through non-linguistic modes, like facial expressions, gestures, and postures. However, not every form of non-verbal behavior constitutes non-verbal communication and some theorists hold that the existence of a socially shared coding system for interpreting the meaning of the behavior is relevant for whether it should be regarded as non-verbal communication. 

A lot of non-verbal communication happens unintentionally and unconsciously, like sweating or blushing. But there are also conscious intentional forms, like shaking hands or raising a thumb. 

Traditionally, most research focused on verbal communication. However, this paradigm has shifted and a lot of importance is given to non-verbal communication in contemporary research. For example, many judgments about the nature and behavior of other people are based on non-verbal cues, like their facial expressions and tone of voice. 

Some theorists claim that the majority of the ideas and information conveyed happens this way. According to Ray Birdwhistell, for example, 65% of communication happens non-verbally. Other reasons for its importance are that it is present in almost every communicative act to some extent, that it is able to fulfill many different functions, and that certain parts of it are universally understood. 

It has also been suggested that human communication is at its core non-verbal and that words can only acquire meaning because of non-verbal communication. The earliest forms of human communication are non-verbal, like crying to indicate distress and later also babbling, which conveys information about the infant's health and well-being. 

Non-verbal communication is studied in various fields besides communication studies, like linguistics, semiotics, anthropology, and social psychology.

Non-verbal communication has many functions. It frequently contains information about emotions, attitudes, personality, interpersonal relationships, and private thoughts. It often happens simultaneously with verbal communication and helps optimize the exchange through emphasis and illustration or by adding additional information. Non-verbal cues can also clarify the intent behind a verbal message. 

Communication is usually more effective if several modalities are used and their messages are consistent. But in some cases, the different modalities contain conflicting messages, for example, when a person verbally agrees with a statement but presses their lips together, thereby indicating disagreement non-verbally.

There are many forms of non-verbal communication. They include: 
Kinesics investigates the role of bodily behavior in conveying information. It is commonly referred to as body language, even though it is, strictly speaking, not a language but belongs to non-verbal communication. It includes many forms, like gestures, postures, walking styles, and dance. Facial expressions, like laughing, smiling, and frowning, are an important part of kinesics since they are both very expressive and highly flexible. 

Oculesics is another subcategory of kinesics in regard to the eyes. It covers questions like how eye contact, gaze, blink rate, and pupil dilation form part of communication. Some kinesic patterns are inborn and involuntary, like blinking, while others are learned and voluntary, like giving a military salute. 

Proxemics studies how personal space is used in communication. For example, the distance between the speakers reflects their degree of familiarity and intimacy with each other as well as their social status. 

Haptics investigates how information is conveyed using touching behavior, like handshakes, holding hands, kissing, or slapping. Many of the meanings associated with haptics reflect care, concern, anger, and violence. For example, handshaking is often seen as a symbol of equality and fairness, while refusing to shake hands can indicate aggressiveness. Kissing is another form often used to show affection and erotic closeness.

Paralanguage, also known as vocalics, concerns the use of voice in communication. It depends on verbal communication in the form of speech but studies how something is said instead of what is said. It includes factors like articulation, lip control, rhythm, intensity, pitch, fluency, and loudness. 

In this regard, saying something loudly and in high pitch may convey a very different meaning than whispering the same words. Paralanguage is mainly concerned with spoken language but also includes aspects of written language, like the use of colors and fonts as well as the spatial arrangement in paragraphs and tables. 

Chronemics refers to the use of time, for example, what messages are sent by being on time or being late for a meeting. The physical appearance of the communicator also carries a lot of information, like height, weight, hair, skin color, gender, odors, clothing, tattooing, and piercing. 

It is an important factor for first impressions but is more limited as a mode of communication since it is less changeable. Some forms of non-verbal communication happen using artifacts, such as drums, smoke, batons, or traffic lights.

Interpersonal:

Interpersonal communication refers to communication between distinct individuals. Its typical form is dyadic communication between two people but it can also refer to communication within groups. It can be planned or unplanned and occurs in many different forms, like when greeting someone, during salary negotiations, or when making a phone call. 

Some theorists understand interpersonal communication as a fuzzy concept that manifests in degrees. On this view, an exchange is more or less interpersonal depending on how many people are present, whether it happens face-to-face rather than through telephone or email, and whether it focuses on the relationship between the communicators. 

In this regard, group communication and mass communication are less typical forms of interpersonal communication and some theorists treat them as distinct types.

Various theories of the function of interpersonal communication have been proposed. Some focus on how it helps people make sense of their world and create society while others hold that its primary purpose is to understand why other people act the way they do and to adjust one's behavior accordingly. 

A closely related approach is to focus on information and see interpersonal communication as an attempt to reduce uncertainty about others and external events. Other explanations understand it in terms of the needs it satisfies. This includes the needs of belonging somewhere, being included, being liked, maintaining relationships, and influencing the behavior of others. 

On a practical level, interpersonal communication is used to coordinate one's actions with the actions of others in order to get things done. Research on interpersonal communication concerns various topics, such as how people build, maintain, and dissolve relationships through communication, why they choose one message rather than another, what effects these messages have on the relationship and on the individual, and how to predict whether two people would like each other.

Interpersonal communication can be synchronous or asynchronous. For asynchronous communication, the different parties take turns in sending and receiving messages. An example would be the exchange of letters or emails.

For synchronous communication, both parties send messages at the same time. This happens, for example, when one person is talking while the other person sends non-verbal messages in response signaling whether they agree with what is being said. 

Some theorists distinguish between content messages and relational messages. Content messages express the speaker's feelings toward the topic of discussion. Relational messages, on the other hand, demonstrate the speaker's feelings toward their relationship with the other participants.

Intrapersonal:

Intrapersonal communication refers to communication with oneself. In some cases this manifests externally, like when engaged in a monologue, taking notes, highlighting a passage, and writing a diary or a shopping list. But many forms of intrapersonal communication happen internally in the form of inner dialog, like when thinking about something or daydreaming.

Intrapersonal communication serves various functions. As a form of inner dialog, it is usually triggered by external events and may happen in the form of articulating a phrase before expressing it externally, planning for the future, or as an attempt to process emotions when trying to calm oneself down in stressful situations. 

It can help regulate one's own mental activity and outward behavior as well as internalize cultural norms and ways of thinking. External forms of intrapersonal communication can aid one's memory, like when making a shopping list, help unravel difficult problems, as when solving a complex mathematical equation line by line, and internalize new knowledge, like when repeating new vocabulary to oneself. 

Because of these functions, intrapersonal communication can be understood as "an exceptionally powerful and pervasive tool for thinking."

Based on its role in self-regulation, some theorists have suggested that intrapersonal communication is more fundamental than interpersonal communication. This is based on the observation that young children sometimes use egocentric speech while playing in an attempt to direct their own behavior.

On this view, interpersonal communication only develops later when the child moves from their early egocentric perspective to a more social perspective. Other theorists contend that interpersonal communication is more basic. They explain this by arguing that language is used first by parents to regulate what their child does. Once the child has learned this, it can apply the same technique on itself to get more control over its own behavior.

Contexts and purposes:

There are countless other categorizations of communication besides the types discussed so far. They often focus on the context, purpose, and topic of communication.

For example, organizational communication concerns communication between members of organizations such as corporations, nonprofits, or small businesses. Important in this regard is the coordination of the behavior of the different members as well as the interaction with customers and the general public. 

Closely related terms are business communication, corporate communication, professional communication, and workspace communication. Political communication refers to communication in relation to politics. It covers topics like electoral campaigns to influence the voters and legislative communication, like letters to congress or committee documents.

Specific emphasis is often given to propaganda and the role of mass media. Intercultural communication is relevant to both organizational and political communication since they often involve attempts to exchange messages between communicators from different cultural backgrounds. 

Important in this regard is to avoid misunderstandings since the cultural background affects how messages are formulated and interpreted. This is also relevant for development communication, which is concerned with the use of communication for assisting in development, specifically concerning aid given by first-world countries to third-world countries. 

Another important field is health communication, which is about communication in the field of healthcare and health promotion efforts. An important topic in this field is how healthcare providers, like doctors and nurses, should communicate with their patients.

Many other types of communication are discussed in the academic literature. They include: 
Non-human:
See also:  ​
Besides human communication, there are also many forms of non-human communication found, for example, in the animal kingdom and among plants. Sometimes, the term extrapersonal communication is used in this regard to contrast it with interpersonal and intrapersonal communication. 

The field of inquiry studying non-human communication is called biosemiotics. There are additional difficulties in this field for judging whether communication has taken place between two individuals. For example, acoustic signals are often easy to notice and analyze for scientists but additional difficulties come when judging whether tactile or chemical changes should be understood as communicative signals rather than as other biological processes.

For this reason, researchers often use slightly altered definitions of communication in order to facilitate their work. A common assumption in this regard comes from evolutionary biology and holds that communication should somehow benefit the communicators in terms of natural selection. In this regard, "communication can be defined as the exchange of information between individuals, wherein both the signaller and receiver may expect to benefit from the exchange." 

So the sender should benefit by influencing the receiver's behavior and the receiver should benefit by responding to the signal. It is often held that these benefits should exist on average but not necessarily in every single case. This way, deceptive signaling can also be understood as a form of communication.

One problem with the evolutionary approach is that it is often very difficult to assess the influence of such behavior on natural selection. Another common pragmatic constraint is to hold that it is necessary to observe a response by the receiver following the signal when judging whether communication has occurred.

Animals:

Animal communication refers to the process of giving and taking information among animals. The field studying animal communication is called zoosemiotics. 

There are many parallels to human communication. For example, humans and many animals express sympathy by synchronizing their movements and postures. Nonetheless, there are also important differences, like the fact that humans also engage in verbal communication while animal communication is restricted to non-verbal communication. 

Some theorists have tried to distinguish human from animal communication based on the claim that animal communication lacks a referential function and is thus not able to refer to external phenomena. However, this view is often rejected, especially for higher animals. 

A different approach is to draw the distinction based on the complexity of human language, especially its almost limitless ability to combine basic units of meaning into more complex meaning structures. For example, it has been argued that recursion is a property of human language that sets it apart from all non-human communicative systems. 

Another difference is that human communication is frequently associated with a conscious intention to send information, which is often not discernable for animal communication.

Animal communication can take a variety of forms, including visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory communication. Visual communication happens in the form of movements, gestures, facial expressions, and colors, like movements seen during mating rituals, the colors of birds, and the rhythmic light of fireflies.

Auditory communication takes place through vocalizations by species like birds, primates, and dogs. It is frequently used to alert and warn. Lower animals often have very simple response patterns to auditory messages, reacting either by approach or avoidance. 

More complex response patterns are observed for higher species, which may use different signals for different types of predators and responses. For example, certain primates use different signals for airborne and land predators. Tactile communication occurs through touch, vibration, stroking, rubbing, and pressure.

It is especially relevant for parent-young relations, courtship, social greetings, and defense. Olfactory and gustatory communication happens chemically through smells and tastes.

There are huge differences between species concerning what functions communication plays, how much it is realized, and the behavior through which they communicate. Common functions include the fields of courtship and mating, parent-offspring relations, social relations, navigation, self-defense, and territoriality. 

An important part of courtship and mating consists in identifying and attracting potential mates. This can happen through songs, like grasshoppers and crickets, chemically through pheromones, like moths, and through visual messages by flashing light, like fireflies. 

For many species, the offspring depends for its survival on the parent. One central function of parent-offspring communication is to recognize each other. In some cases, the parents are also able to guide the offspring's behavior. Social animals, like chimpanzees, bonobos, wolves, and dogs, engage in various forms of communication to express their feelings and build relations. 

Navigation concerns the movement through space in a purposeful manner, e.g. to locate food, avoid enemies, and follow a colleague. In bats, this happens through echolocation, i.e. by sending auditory signals and processing the information from the echoes. Bees are another often-discussed case in this respect since they perform a dance to indicate to other bees where flowers are located. 

In regard to self-defense, communication is used to warn others and to assess whether a costly fight can be avoided. Another function of communication is to mark and claim certain territories used for food and mating. For example, some male birds claim a hedge or part of a meadow by using songs to keep other males away and attract females.

Two competing theories in the study of animal communication are nature theory and nurture theory. Their conflict concerns to what extent animal communication is programmed into the genes as a form of adaptation rather than learned from previous experience as a form of conditioning. To the degree that it is learned, it usually happens through imprinting, i.e. as a form of learning that only happens in a certain phase and is then mostly irreversible.

Plants, fungi, and bacteria:

Plant communication refers to plant processes involving the sending and receiving of information. The field studying plant communication is called phytosemiotics. This field poses additional difficulties for researchers since plants are very different from humans and other animals: they lack a central nervous system and have rigid cell walls. These walls restrict movement and make it impossible for plants to send or receive signals that depend on rapid movement. 

However, there are important similarities as well since plants face many of the same challenges as other animals, like finding resources, avoiding predators and pathogens as well as finding mates and ensuring that their offspring survives. 

Many of the evolutionary responses to these challenges are analogous to those in animals but are implemented using different means. One important difference is that chemical communication is much more prominent for plant communication in contrast to the importance of visual and auditory communication for animals.

​Communication is a form of behavior. In regard to plants, the term behavior is usually not defined in terms of physical movement, as is the case for animals, but as a biochemical response to a stimulus. This response has to be short relative to the plant's lifespan.

Communication is a special form of behavior that involves conveying information from a sender to a receiver and is distinguished from other types of behavior, like defensive reactions and mere sensing. 

Theorists usually include additional requirements, like that there is some form of response in the receiver and that the communicative behavior benefits both sender and receiver in terms of natural selection. 

Richard Karban distinguishes three steps of plant communication: the emission of a cue by a sender, the perception of the cue by a receiver, and their response. It is not relevant to what extent the emission of a cue is intentional but it should be possible for the receiver to ignore the signal.

Plant communication happens in various forms. It includes communication within plants, i.e. within plant cells and between plant cells, between plants of the same or related species, and between plants and non-plant organisms, especially in the root zone. Plant roots also communicate with rhizome bacteria, fungi, and insects within the soil. 

A prominent form of communication is airborne and happens through so-called volatile organic compounds (VOCs). For example, many plants, like maple trees, release VOCs when they are attacked by a herbivore to warn neighboring plants, which then react accordingly by adjusting their defenses. 

Another form of plant-to-plant communication happens through mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi form underground networks, sometimes referred to as the Wood-Wide Web, and connect the roots of different plants. The plants use the network to send messages to each other, specifically to warn other plants of a pest attack and to help prepare their defenses.

Communication can also be observed for fungi and bacteria. Some fungal species communicate by releasing pheromones into the external environment. For example, they are used to promote sexual interaction (mating) in several aquatic fungal species, like:
An important form of communication between bacteria is called quorum sensing. It happens by releasing hormone-like molecules, which other bacteria detect and respond to. This process is used to monitor the environment for other bacteria and to coordinate population-wide responses, for example, by sensing the density of bacteria and regulating gene expression accordingly. Other possible responses include the induction of bioluminescence and the formation of biofilms.

Interspecies:

Most communication happens between members within a species as a form of intraspecies communication. This is because the purpose of communication is usually some form of cooperation, which happens mostly within a species while different species are often in conflict with each other in their competition over resources. 

However, there are also some forms of interspecies communication. This occurs especially when there are symbiotic relationships and significantly less for parasitic or predator-prey relationships.

Interspecies communication plays an important role for various plants that depend for their reproduction on external agents. For example, flowers need insects for pollination and provide resources like nectar and other rewards in return. They use various forms of communication to signal their benefits and attract visitors, for example, by using colors that stand out from their surroundings and by using symmetrical shapes. 

This form of advertisement is necessary since different flowers compete for potential visitors. Many fruit-bearing plants rely on plant-to-animal communication to disperse their seeds and move them to a favorable location. This happens by providing nutritious fruits to animals. The seeds are eaten together with the fruit and are later excreted at a different location. 

Communication is central to make the animals aware of where the fruits are and whether they are ripe. For many fruits, this happens through their color: they have an inconspicuous green color until they ripen and take on a new color that stands in visual contrast to the environment. 

Another example of interspecies communication is found in the ant-plant relationship. It concerns, for example, the selection of seeds by ants for their ant gardens and the pruning of exogenous vegetation as well as plant protection by ants.

Several animal species also engage in interspecies communication, like apes, whales, dolphins, elephants, and dogs. 

For example, different species of monkeys use common signals to cooperate when threatened by a common predator. An example of interspecies communication involving humans is found in their relation to pets. 

For example, acoustic signals play a central role in communication with dogs. Dogs are able to learn to respond to various commands, like "sit" and "come". They can even learn short syntactic combinations, like "bring X" or "put X in a box". They also react to the pitch and frequency of the human voice by reading off information about emotions, dominance, and uncertainty.

Humans can understand dog signals in the form of interpreting and reacting to their emotions, such as aggressiveness, fearfulness, and playfulness.

Communication studies:
Main article: Communication studies

Communication studies, also referred to as communication science, is the academic discipline studying communication. It is closely related to semiotics, with one difference being that communication studies focuses more on technical questions of how messages are sent, received, and processed while semiotics tackles more abstract questions in relation to meaning and how signs acquire meaning. 

Communication studies covers a wide area overlapping with many other disciplines, such as the following: 
Many contributions in the field of communication studies focus on developing models and theories of communication. Models of communication aim to give a simplified overview of the main components involved in communication. Theories of communication, on the other hand, try to provide conceptual frameworks to accurately present communication in all its complexity. 

Other topics in communication studies concern the function and effects of communication, like satisfying physiological and psychological needs and building relationships as well as gathering information about the environment, others, and oneself. 

A further issue concerns the question of how communication systems change over time and how these changes correlate with other societal changes. A related question focuses on psychological principles underlying those changes and the effects they have on how people exchange ideas.

Communication was already studied as early as Ancient Greek. Important early theories are due to Plato and Aristotle, who gave a lot of emphasis on the role of public speaking. For example, Aristotle held that the goal of communication is to persuade the audience. 

However, the field of communication studies only became a separate research discipline in the 20th century, especially starting in the 1940s. 

The development of new communication technologies, such as telephone, radio, newspapers, television, and the internet, has had a big impact on communication and communication studies.

Today, communication studies is a wide discipline that includes many subfields dedicated to topics like:
  • interpersonal and intrapersonal communication,
  • verbal and non-verbal communication,
  • group communication,
  • organizational communication,
  • political communication,
  • intercultural communication,
  • mass communication,
  • persuasive communication,
  • and health communication. 

Some works in communications studies try to provide a very general characterization of communication in the widest sense while others attempt to give a precise analysis of a specific form of communication.

Barriers to effectiveness:

Barriers to effective communication can distort the message or intention of the message being conveyed. This may result in failure of the communication process or cause an effect that is undesirable. These include:
Noise:

In any communication model, noise is interference with the decoding of messages sent over the channel by an encoder. To face communication noise, redundancy and acknowledgement must often be used. Acknowledgements are messages from the addressee informing the originator that his/her communication has been received and is understood. 

Message repetition and feedback about message received are necessary in the presence of noise to reduce the probability of misunderstanding.

The act of disambiguation regards the attempt of reducing noise and wrong interpretations, when the semantic value or meaning of a sign can be subject to noise, or in presence of multiple meanings, which makes the sense-making difficult. Disambiguation attempts to decrease the likelihood of misunderstanding. This is also a fundamental skill in communication processes activated by counselors, psychotherapists, interpreters, and in coaching sessions based on colloquium.

In Information Technology, the disambiguation process and the automatic disambiguation of meanings of words and sentences has also been an interest and concern since the earliest days of computer treatment of language.

Cultural aspects:

Cultural differences exist within countries (tribal/regional differences, dialects and so on), between religious groups and in organisations or at an organisational level – where companies, teams and units may have different expectations, norms and idiolects.

Families and family groups may also experience the effect of cultural barriers to communication within and between different family members or groups. For example: words, colours and symbols have different meanings in different cultures. In most parts of the world, nodding your head means agreement, shaking your head means "no", but this is not true everywhere.

Communication to a great extent is influenced by culture and cultural variables. Understanding cultural aspects of communication refers to having knowledge of different cultures in order to communicate effectively with cross culture people. Cultural aspects of communication are of great relevance in today's world which is now a global village, thanks to globalization.

Cultural aspects of communication are the cultural differences which influence communication across borders. So in order to have an effective communication across the world it is desirable to have a knowledge of cultural variables effecting communication.

According to Michael Walsh and Ghil'ad Zuckermann, Western conversational interaction is typically "dyadic", between two particular people, where eye contact is important and the speaker controls the interaction; and "contained" in a relatively short, defined time frame.

However, traditional Aboriginal conversational interaction is "communal", broadcast to many people, eye contact is not important, the listener controls the interaction; and "continuous", spread over a longer, indefinite time frame.

See also:​







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