Talk:Communication/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Overview

• Types of communication...

moved to article and thinking about colalpsing to table like that:

x	one	two	many
one	1	2	1000
two	2	4	2000
many	50	100	50000

Purpose of communication

• • To inform
  • To avoid misunderstanding
  • To remind
  • To review beautiful memory
  • To gain control
  • To persuade
  • To teach
  • To plan

Also:

• • To confuse
  • To create misunderstanding
  • To distract
  • To review painful memories
  • To yield control
  • To dissuade
  • To misdirect
  • To express emotion
  • To gain status
  • To avoid loneliness
  • To make a fool out of your self —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.43.193.9 (talk) 18:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Examples of communication

moved to article

• Overview of debate: what is and isn't communication?

Communication Theory

To risk saying the obvious: There are so many theories of communication out there that it is probably fruitless to try and list them here. They even let quacks like me come up with new theories! It is not a particularly selective club. . .

Perhaps it would be easier and more helpful to link to an article that features one theory or a group of theories.

For example:

Many of the "directional" sorts of theories (up/down, sender/receiver, cycles and spirals, information load, channels, noise/signal, interference

all pretty much view human communication as the transmission of a message. This isn't necessarily bad, but it is fairly dated (there has been relatively little new work in these models for at least a decade) and often now considered somewhat limiting. i like to talk

It's a great start to introduce some of the basics of some forms of communication in a quick way, which is why so many "Introduction to Human Communication" textbooks start there.

But our discussion shouldn't end here.

Some examples: If there are so many possible interpretations of words and ideas (and the "correspondent" or "representational" views have some real problems). This view of language would suggest that each word refers to or points to a corresponding idea so that when you think of a chair and you say the word, "chair" I hear the word "chair" and follow the pointer to the the correct idea "something to sit upon." So if where I end up is where you started then we have a successful communicative interaction.

But there are some really big (read: so far unsolved) problems with some of these premises.

For example, Who decides what is and is not an acceptable, or "true" idea? This perspective can't easily accommodate ambiguity: By definition if some word symbol doesn't point to an idea it is a nonsensical utterance--words without meaning. But with this model how can we deal with someone who intentionally picks a word symbol that might point me to the wrong idea? If you point to one meaning and I refer to another, are you (the speaker) always right? Is the hearer always wrong? How would an observing third party ever hope to figure out whether the communication was successful? Surely we can't vote on it!

How many of these unique ideas are there? Who gets to decide which are "real" and which are "false" ideas? If you have every possible false idea as a potential to be pointed to by some word or combination of words, the ratio of "bad words" to "good words" (that is, those words which correctly can be pointed to vs. those which cannot) is disturbingly high.

Also, how can we deal with the various levels of abstraction? "Chair" can be very specific ("this chair, my favorite chair, and no other") or very general ("that line of hills with those clouds looks like a big overstuffed chair") and if I can't directly access your set of word pointers and you can't access mine, how can we ever know if we are talking about the same thing? Now how can we account for the matches (or mismatches) of meaning when there is one speaker and a thousand listening? Or a recorded radio program so that the multiple speakers and the multiple listeners are never present in the same place at the same time.

These are not just important distinctions, they are vital. If communication is a process of transporting a meaning, we better be able to say just what is and what is not a meaning.

Because of these problems and many others like them, most people who would be considered by their peers to be communication theorists, have moved on to different sorts of models that focus more on creating meaning than on pointing to pre-defined meanings.

That said, let me be quick to point out that the types of communication theorists that are not dealing with "human communication" but with concepts such as "communication of a charge" among molecules the linear, mechanical transportation of meaning might be entirely useful.

So it is certainly fine to list these sorts of communicative models as falling within the vast range of communication theories, but we probably would be doing our readers a disservice to suggest that these are the principal models used in human communication today.

Roy 20:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Communication models

{{Diagram needed}}

• encoding, sending and receiving messages

I've done this one Yupi666 09:56, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

• Shannon-Weaver Model
• symbols, language
• verbal communication:
  • speaking
  • writing
• nonverbal communication:
  • body language (including Facial and Bodily Expressions)

also did another based on information on the article Yupi666 09:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Information & Communications Technologies (ICTs)

• general overview of changes and advances
• effects of communication technology on culture and society
• systems of communication
• Timeline of communication technology
• The United States Federal Communications Commission
• the communication is key to sucess.when it is in sequance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.164.52.4 (talk) 13:29, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The study of communication

• historical sketch
• important people, theories

Communication Topics

Importance of Communication

Communication as the process that builds Community. See Portal:Community, Social network, Sense of community, etc. -- CQ 10:34, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Communication in XX Century

is very extensively developed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.83.26.76 (talk) 09:39, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Communication in War

гпшгпгп —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.157.161.79 (talk) 15:34, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Written Communications

• Grammar

eo: Information technology

The eo: article is about information technology. I think the interwiki link should be removed. Andres 07:02, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Information

Shouldn't communication come under information? Right now, the categories are the other way around. Brian Jason Drake 08:43, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Having not seen any response for a long time, I made each of Information and Communication be within a category of the same name only and Category:Communication be under Category:Information, not the other way around. Brian Jason Drake 11:45, 18 February 2006 (UTC) [signed Brian Jason Drake 05:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)]

Brian I am not so sure I understand why they would have to be combined in a hierarchy since communication is the process of sharing information and there can be no communciation with out information to share. While on the other hand with out communication information cannot be shared. My point is simply why join them together? Can they not exist on their own? Just a question. Kyle.Mullaney 08:00, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Maritime communication methods

Just wanted to add some methods of communication from the maritime area that are still in use but didn't get a mention, as yet.

1. Flashing Light (Morse code) 2. Flag signals (Nelson's famous 'England expects....' message) 3. Lighthouses (definately one way communications)

Glenn Burton--203.213.8.11 07:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

The tampering

Someone tampered with some of the communication pages. I have begun the reconstruction process, but I will need assistance, from those who have half a brain at least. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.245.172.44 (talk • contribs) 23:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC).

too linear, mechanical

Yeah, communication *can* be seen as the transmission of information, but that's a fairly restrictive/reductionist view. It surely should not be cast in a way that implies this is the "overall principle" under which other discussions will sit. Communication is sometimes not related at all to information (at least in a non-tautologic "everything is information" sense). If that's all communication is, it probably does deserve no better than a list under "Information."

Communication is culture, organization, metaphysics. Some postmodern theorists talk about the decentered self. Although developed in many different ways and apparently embedded with different teleological "genes", most of the presentations of decenteredness rely on communication as a basic process through which our identities are constantly being recreated. Much, perhaps all communication is negotiation, competition, coalition-building as various communities strive with each other to produce meaning.

The whole linear thing just falls apart on so many levels. It is an exceptionally useful perspective--along with cybernetics, information science and systems models.

Semiotics/Semantics

This is one view of Semiotics for sure. There are other views: Sassure and Peirce gave us mutually incompatible frameworks. It would be nice to clarify this to make the article's statements a bit less modern-like in its sweeping and totalizing positions?

The Gauntlet

Perhaps that is too connotative of conflict for what I am looking at.

I have taken the really bold step of trying to fashion an introduction that takes a pass at the huge amount of material falling within the "Communication" name. I probably do have at least some of the background useful to such a task, I do hold a Ph.D. in Communication, with additional concentrations in Semiotics and "Anthropological Linguistics" and "Philosophy and Communication". I've worked in Advertising, journalism, corporate purchasing, as an executive director for a non-profit organization, designed small business accounting systems, led board training, worked in radio (domestic and international), tutoring graduate students in statistics, publishing an academic communication journal, review, analysis, purchase, installation and support of computer systems, information management, database design and implementation, public and private higher education (including stints in MBA programs)and one especially sorry stint delivering telephone books! My current research interests involve collaborating with my wife (a research psychologist) on a postmodern model of the decentered self--drawing heavily on the marketplace metaphor. Given the mess the whole "communication thing" is in, this probably does more to disqualify me than anything. . .I'm probably a walking example of some of the problems!

This is my hope:

The topic is much, much too broad for any particular definition of communication to cover everything and it seems like an unnecessary waste of effort for us to replicate here the debates that (perhaps) our wiser ancestors simply handled by ignoring one another. A common response I get to my "organizational communication" focus is "so you design telephone systems for big corporations?" Well actually I have a couple of friends who do design, program and install such systems and they call what they do "Corporate Communications." Perhaps instructively the things we have in common have nothing to do with any of our education or professional responsibilities.

A bit of a plan?

So with this (hopefully) broad enough introduction I hope that many others who happen on this page will "write their own section." I would encourage folks to stay away from chopping up sections with which you have little direct experience or knowledge. It would be wonderful, however, if some of those civil disagreements and requests for more information come here for a full hearing that would be great!

One more suggestion. Because of the immenseness (immensity?)of the topic it would probably be most helpful for us all to devote a good hunk of our available energy, time and brain power to developing the ton of other smaller (in scope, not necessarily size) pages that this page will point.

I am being really bold here. I'm doing it with some care, however. What I see so far is an article that is one of Wikipedia's most important (in terms of breadth) but that lacks any single organization. It reads as though various people jumped in and wrote awhile until they became overwhelmed (or ran into something *else* to do with a few hours of their lives!) and someone else started in somewhere and went a different direction.

I'm not volunteering! Just suggesting

Please don't get me wrong. I am *not* going to take any sort of further responsibility for this page, I am *not* going to assign anything or mediate any scuffles and I am highly unlikely to write any more big blocks. So my humility in the opening here is sincere. I just don't have the breadth to even comprehend most of what is called "communication" (my eyes spin in weird ways when I hear Quantum and high-energy physicists talk about how some atomic particles communicate with other atomic particles a long way away. Something about the uncertainty principle and tied in with dark matter (by some). I really get lost quickly in this sort of discussion--but it is critical that we include it and a hundred like it.

Please take a careful look at what I've written. Revise, edit, delete--whatever makes the article better. Do you agree with the general outline I'm suggesting? If not, change it whether you think it needs some fine tuning or properly should be sent in its entirety to the digital Valhalla (where all valiant bytes fallen in battle end up--Ok, not really, but it sort of sounded good for a minute.)

In this topic especially--due to the breadth and complexity of all the subparts--I would hope that we could all be bold and continue to ruthlessly revise. (I forgot to list Bonsai as communication. . .)

Thanks.

Roy 19:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions/Possibilities for structure?

This is a bit of a follow-up note to my diatribe of a few days ago.

What do you think about this possibility?

(1) Introduction:

Way too big to deal with, so we are doing just that (grin). Strategy: focus on breadth of topic to disarm any testostrone-based lifeforms that might want to come in swinging about how his (almost always "hes") experience with communication is the only real one. By painting the canvas broadly, we set it up for a quick separation of "threads" based on some sort of criteria. That is, after highlighting the breadth of the topic, the reader will be expecting some sort of division. It also allows us the luxury of simply adding in a word or phrase if someone else steps up and says "what about . . .?" We can make any number of those additions without much pain.

Another "come clean" time: Another part of my research interest has to do with classification. In my dissertation I make the argument that classification should not be random, that there are defensible groupings, and that these groupings are user/utility based rather than given in the items themselves. In short, we are presented disparate sense data, based on our experience and constrained by the limits of our sensory capabilities, we "create" things by chunking together this sensory information (e.g., the sound of the hawk, the visual quick form in my peripheral vision and the observations of lots of voles scurrying around my feet in the field all contribute to me "deciding" or "thingifying" a hawk. There is nothing that requires me to group my sensory data this way, and different groupings would not have any greater or lesser ontological status. (e.g., I might be a painter looking for a nice place to paint, in which case these sensory data I previously mentioned would tend to be bumped down my "relevance" list while colors and shadows occupy the places at the top.)

This is to lead up to a defense of my proposed schema. Because it is likely that the majority of people coming to a "communication" entry in Wikipedia will be looking for a particular sort of communication--one specific frame in which communication means some specific and definite things (otherwise they wouldn't have included "communication" as the starting place of their search). Instead of trying to agree upon "what really belongs together" in a global categorization of communication (and thus setting up our little entry as a place of lots of intellectual violence and rhetorical scalping) we could take the utilitarian approach and ask ourselves "are there broad categories of nouns clustered around the word symbol "communication" and do these specific clusterings tend to themselves cluster around particular mindsets or expectations that are responsible for bringing seekers to us?

So instead of immediately going into either a massive listing of communication-like terms drawn from any conceivable discipline, or of smuggling in a certain bias in what "the most important classifications" might look like, we could offer a few paragraphs each for the broadly conceived "disciplines" or "contexts" which are likely to be guiding a specific reader's search.

Another way of putting it would be to say "If you are looking for this sort of thing when you think 'communication' then head here ("here" being a specific daughter-page which handles the communication construct in a relatively consistent way. For example, "wires", "satellites", "treaties", "signal jamming", "internet" might all share a certain sensibility invoked when uttering the word "communication" and even though there might not be a razor-sharp dividing line between two disciplines (surprise! academic disciplines aren't identical to outside-world usages!) I think we could reasonably start with an assumption that a reader might recognize this sort of word set as "in the right ballpark" of why that reader ended up here.

We don't have to begin by deciding "satellite communication belongs to mass communication in the human communication discipline. Mass com will likely talk about satellites and communication but their "satellite" will be pointing to a different place than the person looking into international treaties and the distribution of wavespace. As long as we don't start with Mass Communication, International Communication Treaties and "Worldwide Communication Technology" as discrete topics we will be comfortably situated among people meaning similar things when they each say "communication". I don't have to fight to keep "satellite" in the mass com subtopic.

This also allows us, through the liberal use of internal links, to spare the reader coming here with a specific form of communication in mind the task of reading through the entire article in order to get to the "links" section at the end. If readers are interested only in a very specific phenomenon that is called "communication" (e.g., dropped here by using "communication" in the key words of their search) we can send them on their merry way without forcing them to listen to a lecture about the various theories of how we create and accept symbols as placeholders for certain groups of meanings.

(2) General topics:

Those with a larger goal--perhaps all of "human communication" or "computer communication technology" can perhaps best be served with this sort of grand title for a section. Each of these sections will be further divided, of course, but each will start with a few links/redirects to other more specific articles elsewhere in Wikipedia. If someone is coming here with a specific purpose in mind (e.g., ethics of communication ala' Habermas' "Ideal Speech Situation") it seems they would be well served by quickly scanning a section titled something like "Communication in Philosophy and Ethics" from which they might want to explore several different threads--including, of course, Habermas.

I'm thinking here of broad swaths of related things/ being careful to group the subtopics that would likely be grouped together in a reference book or college course. We won't have to waste too much energy deciding which subtopics belong where because there is no requirement that our entries be mutually exclusive.

By that I mean that if "dyadic communication" ends up being a term used in several fields, we don't have to choose just one place to put the term. We might easily have a "dyadic" under com theory, human communication, rhetoric/public speaking/forensics, and perhaps robotic control theory (I'm still making this up as we go!). The term "dyadic" might point to different places when it is used in different sections.

more to come. . . Vagabundus 06:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

the word communication is how people respond to each other and how people and animals understand each other

Electronic Communication

I remember there is a special term for communicating with electronics, anyone know what that term is?68.161.21.39 22:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)JLiu

You speak German, don't you.

"You speak German, don't you" is a phrase used in reprimand, in the German-speaking areas of the world, to remind others that they can simply communicate their questions and other difficulties to others, if they need. I learned this from a Swiss colleague. --Ancheta Wis 11:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Real-time vs. Delayed

I came to this article hoping to refresh my memory on the proper terms for real-time and delayed communication and was surprised to not see any discussion of this dimension (unless I just missed it). For example, in-person and telephone and chat rooms (mostly) are real-time communication, while mail and printed materials and online message boards and recorded tv/movies are "delayed" (published? less temporal?). Just a suggestion for those more familiar with the article and topic. : ) --Hebisddave 12:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

First paragraph

The first paragraph of this article currently states:

Communication is a process that allows organisms to exchange information by several methods. Communication requires that all parties understand a common language that is exchanged.

and goes on to talk exclusively about communication between living things, mainly humans. This leaves out the very important subject of communication between machines, most of which happens in order to allow humans to communicate more easily. I haven't read the *whole* talk page, but it seems like this issue was raised but then cast aside. I can understand if the consensus is that the article should focus on human communication, but I think there should at least be some mention of non-human communication (even if it is just 'for non-human communication, go [[here]]). --carelesshx _talk 16:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup & overhaul begun

Having just spent the last two hours cleaning out a whole lot of frankly sophomoric drivel (as well as doing a bit of reorganizing), I thought a short comment was in order. I've done a good deal of this sort of "salvaging" on a wide variety of articles, but it was truly dismaying to encounter such a display of garbled writing and woefully deficient communication skills in this, of all articles. What an embarassment for Wikipedia.

I wish I could stick around and finish the job I've begun, but I'm afraid this just isn't my main area of interest -- so I hope other knowledgable editors will pick up where I left off. Cgingold (talk) 18:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I have added a cleanup tag on the top of the page so that other editors also contribute towards the improvement of the article as it is vague and confusing. Kalivd (talk) 15:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Ignoring of this page

This page has been ignored and since it has been constantly edited and improved I think the tag should be removed.

Confederatemarine95 (Confederatemarine95) 1900 Monday, March 31, 2008

Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Communication From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.

Please improve this article if you can. (September 2008)

For other uses, see Communication (disambiguation). Communication is the process of conveying information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in which the communicated information is understood the same way by both sender and receiver. It is a process that allows organisms to exchange information by several methods. Communication requires that all parties understand a common language that is exchanged, There are auditory means, such as speaking, singing and sometimes tone of voice, and nonverbal, physical means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch, eye contact, or the use of writing. Communication is defined as a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding. This process requires a vast repertoire of skills in intrapersonal and interpersonal processing, listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analyzing, and evaluating. Use of these processes is developmental and transfers to all areas of life: home, school, community, work, and beyond. It is through communication that collaboration and cooperation occur.[1] Communication is the articulation of sending a message, through different media [2] whether it be verbal or nonverbal, so long as a being transmits a thought provoking idea, gesture, action, etc.

Communication happens at many levels (even for one single action), in many different ways, and for most beings, as well as certain machines. Several, if not all, fields of study dedicate a portion of attention to communication, so when speaking about communication it is very important to be sure about what aspects of communication one is speaking about. Definitions of communication range widely, some recognizing that animals can communicate with each other as well as human beings, and some are more narrow, only including human beings within the parameters of human symbolic interaction.

Nonetheless, communication is usually described along a few major dimensions: Content (what type of things are communicated), source, emisor, sender or encoder (by whom), form (in which form), channel (through which medium), destination, receiver, target or decoder (to whom), and the purpose or pragmatic aspect. Between parties, communication includes acts that confer knowledge and experiences, give advice and commands, and ask questions. These acts may take many forms, in one of the various manners of communication. The form depends on the abilities of the group communicating. Together, communication content and form make messages that are sent towards a destination. The target can be oneself, another person or being, another entity (such as a corporation or group of beings).

Communication can be seen as processes of information transmission governed by three levels of semiotic rules:

Syntactic (formal properties of signs and symbols), pragmatic (concerned with the relations between signs/expressions and their users) and semantic (study of relationships between signs and symbols and what they represent). Therefore, communication is social interaction where at least two interacting agents share a common set of signs and a common set of semiotic rules. This commonly held rule in some sense ignores autocommunication, including intrapersonal communication via diaries or self-talk.

In a simple model, information or content (e.g. a message in natural language) is sent in some form (as spoken language) from an emisor/ sender/ encoder to a destination/ receiver/ decoder. In a slightly more complex form a sender and a receiver are linked reciprocally. A particular instance of communication is called a speech act. In the presence of "communication noise" on the transmission channel (air, in this case), reception and decoding of content may be faulty, and thus the speech act may not achieve the desired effect. One problem with this encode-transmit-receive-decode model is that the processes of encoding and decoding imply that the sender and receiver each possess something that functions as a code book, and that these two code books are, at the very least, similar if not identical. Although something like code books is implied by the model, they are nowhere represented in the model, which creates many conceptual difficulties.

Theories of coregulation describe communication as a creative and dynamic continuous process, rather than a discrete exchange of information.

Contents [hide] 1 Types of communication 1.1 Language 1.1.1 Dialogue 1.1.2 Nonverbal communication 1.2 Non-human living organisms 1.2.1 Animals 1.2.2 Plants and fungi 2 Sources 3 See also 4 External links

[edit] Types of communication There are 3 major parts in any communication which is body language, voice ,tonality and words. According to the research (Mehrabian and Ferris,'Inference of Attitude from Nonverbal Communication in Two Channels' in The Journal of Counselling Psychology Vol.31, 1967,pp.248-52), 55% of impact is determined by body language--postures, gestures, and eye contact, 38% by the tone of voice, and 7% by the content or the words used in the communication process. Although the exact % of influence may differ from variables such as the listener and the speaker, communication as a whole strives for the same goal and thus, in some cases, can be universal.

[edit] Language Main article: Language A language is a syntactically organized system of signals, such as voice sounds, intonations or pitch, gestures or written symbols which communicate thoughts or feelings. If a language is about communicating with signals, voice, sounds, gestures, or written symbols, can animal communications be considered as a language? Animals do not have a written form of a language, but use a language to communicate with each another. In that sense, an animal communication can be considered as a separate language.

Human spoken and written languages can be described as a system of symbols (sometimes known as lexemes) and the grammars (rules) by which the symbols are manipulated. The word "language" is also used to refer to common properties of languages. Language learning is normal in human childhood. Most human languages use patterns of sound or gesture for symbols which enable communication with others around them. There are thousands of human languages, and these seem to share certain properties, even though many shared properties have exceptions.

There is no defined line between a language and a dialect, but the linguist Max Weinreich is credited as saying that "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy". Constructed languages such as Esperanto, programming languages, and various mathematical formalisms are not necessarily restricted to the properties shared by human languages.

[edit] Dialogue Main article: Dialogue A dialogue is a reciprocal conversation between two or more entities. The etymological origins of the word (in Greek διά(diá,through) + λόγος(logos, word,speech) concepts like flowing-through meaning) do not necessarily convey the way in which people have come to use the word, with some confusion between the prefix διά-(diá-,through) and the prefix δι- (di-, two) leading to the assumption that a dialogue is necessarily between only two parties.

[edit] Nonverbal communication Main article: Nonverbal communication Nonverbal communication is the process of communicating through sending and receiving wordless messages. Such messages can be communicated through gesture, body language or posture; facial expression and eye contact, object communication such as clothing, hairstyles or even architecture, or symbols and infographics. Speech may also contain nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, including voice quality, emotion and speaking style, as well as prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation and stress. Likewise, written texts have nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words, or the use of emoticons.A portmanteau of the English words emotion (or emote) and icon, an emoticon is a symbol or combination of symbols used to convey emotional content in written or message form.

[edit] Non-human living organisms Communication in many of its facets is not limited to humans, or even to primates. Every information exchange between living organisms — i.e. transmission of signals involving a living sender and receiver — can be considered a form of communication. Thus, there is the broad field of animal communication, which encompasses most of the issues in ethology. On a more basic level, there is cell signaling, cellular communication, and chemical communication between primitive organisms like bacteria, and within the plant and fungal kingdoms. All of these communication processes are sign-mediated interactions with a great variety of distinct coordinations.

[edit] Animals Animal communication is any behaviour on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behavior of another animal. Of course, human communication can be subsumed as a highly developed form of animal communication. The study of animal communication, called zoosemiotics' (distinguishable from anthroposemiotics, the study of human communication) has played an important part in the development of ethology, sociobiology, and the study of animal cognition. This is quite evident as humans are able to communicate with animals especially dolphins and other animals used in circuses however these animals have to learn a special means of communication. Animal communication, and indeed the understanding of the animal world in general, is a rapidly growing field, and even in the 21st century so far, many prior understandings related to diverse fields such as personal symbolic name use, animal emotions, animal culture and learning, and even sexual conduct, long thought to be well understood, have been revolutionized.

[edit] Plants and fungi Among plants, communication is observed within the plant organism, 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 rootzone. Plant roots communicate in parallel with rhizobia bacteria, with fungi and with insects in the soil. This parallel sign-mediated interactions which are governed by syntactic, pragmatic and semantic rules are possible because of the decentralized "nervous system" of plants. As recent research shows 99% of intraorganismic plant communication processes are neuronal-like. Plants also communicate via volatiles in the case of herbivory attack behavior to warn neighboring plants. In parallel they produce other volatiles which attract parasites which attack these herbivores. In Stress situations plants can overwrite the genetic code they inherited from their parents and revert to that of their grand- or great-grandparents.[3]

Fungi communicate to coordinate and organize their own growth and development such as the formation of mycelia and fruiting bodies. Additionally fungi communicate with same and related species as well as with nonfungal organisms in a great variety of symbiotic interactions, especially with bacteria, unicellular eukaryotes, plants and insects. The used semiochemicals are of biotic origin and they trigger the fungal organism to react in a specific manner, in difference while to even the same chemical molecules are not being a part of biotic messages doesn’t trigger to react the fungal organism. It means, fungal organisms are competent to identify the difference of the same molecules being part of biotic messages or lack of these features. So far five different primary signalling molecules are known that serve to coordinate very different behavioral patterns such as filamentation, mating, growth, pathogenicity. Behavioral coordination and the production of such substances can only be achieved through interpretation processes: self or non-self, abiotic indicator, biotic message from similar, related, or non-related species, or even “noise”, i.e., similar molecules without biotic content-[4]

[edit] Sources Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin 117, 497-529. Severin, Werner J., Tankard, James W., Jr., (1979). Communication Theories: Origins, Methods, Uses. New York: Hastings House, ISBN 0801317037 3) Witzany, G. (2006 ) Plant Communication from Biosemiotic Perspective. Plant Signaling & Behavior 1(4): 169-178.

4) Witzany, G. (2007 ). Applied Biosemiotics: Fungal Communication. In: Witzany, G. (Ed.) Biosemiotics in Transdisciplinary Contexts. Helsinki. Umweb, pp 295-301.

[edit] See also Main article: List of basic communication topics Facilitation Semiotics Coordinated Management of Meaning

[edit] External links A brief history of communication across ages Communicating for change and impact How Human Communication Fails (Tampere University of Technology) The Transmission Model of Communication (Daniel Chandler) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication" Categories: Communication Hidden categories: Cleanup from September 2008 | All pages needing cleanup ViewsArticle Discussion Edit this page History Personal toolsLog in / create account Navigation Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Search

   Interaction

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This page was last modified on 28 September 2008, at 15:12. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.132.5 (talk) 11:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

"Global Communication for Businesses" section removed

I removed the following section from the article:

In his book Global Brains- Knowledge and Competencies for the 21st Century, Gary Ferraro emphasizes the importance of successful global communication when taking a business overseas. In order for a company to be successful in the global economy, the entering business must be aware and conscious of communication protocols, within relevant countries. (Ferraro 2002)

This seems like not more then an advertisment for that book to me. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 13:58, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Cultural Approach to Communication

I Removed the following section from the article:

Discussed in his article A Cultural Approach to Communication, communications theorist James W. Carey draws on the notion that “society exists not only by transmission, by communication, but [also] in transmission, in communication”, claiming that “societies distribute information…and that by such transactions and the channels of communication peculiar to them society is made possible”

From this, he suggests two ways of viewing the communication process and the relationship between transmitter and receiver which demonstrate differing ideas of how communication and society are integrated. These are as follows:

• Transmission model: communication as simply a process whereby messages are transmitted and distributed in space for the control of distance and people. A somewhat hierarchical view, where the communicating or gaining of knowledge is of the most importance.

• Ritual model: the maintenance of society in time through the representation of shared beliefs. Invites participation on the basis of our assuming, where communication produces social bonds which tie men and women together and make associated life possible by way of shared information.

I removed it for the following reasons:

• This section doesn't qualify as part of any "type of communication", the chapter this section was part of.
• This section is to detailled for this overview article anyway. It starts explaining about one particular approach to communication. An article like this should limit it's scope an overview of existing approaches.

-- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:05, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

What is communication - Starting anew

WHAT IS COMMUNICATION? by Ania Lian (PhD), Canberra, Australia Ania Lian (talk) 08:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)§§§§АНЯ

1. Definition Communication begins with perception of ambiguity (or conflict), or its potential. In this sense, a simple act of greeting is an example of a strategy employed in order to prevent being perceived as impolite or strange. Communication therefore is oriented toward reducing or preventing ambiguity. We can define communication as engaging in strategies directed at reducing or preventing ambiguity. Commonly this process is referred to as “clarification”.

When constructing strategies to resolve or reduce ambiguity, interlocutors proceed by exploring (or questioning) the confronting power of their beliefs. This power will determine their capacity to challenge their interlocutors’ assumptions which generated ambiguity in the first place (or which have the potential to do so). Ambiguity is reduced (or prevented) only, when the understandings which generated it (or which can generate it) seem no longer valid.

It follows that at the heart of communication is our capacity to challenge our own belief systems sufficiently for our confrontations to have a desired effect. The challenges that ensue stimulate re-examination and restructuring of our initial beliefs. As a result, we change. Herein lies the paradox of the power of communication: as we engage in confronting and affecting others, we confront and affect ourselves. It is this transforming capacity of communication that makes it such a valuable tool of progress.

Some aspects of communication that the above definition implies are: (a) communication is goal oriented; (b) communication is about managing complex value systems; (c) communication facilitates learning to manipulate those value systems; (d) communication takes place in a complex world of values, not between the encoder and decoder.

The ideas below expand this definition of communication, respond to each point in the definition, and are embedded in the literature of poststructural criticism (e.g. Bourdieu, Calhoun, Bakhtin).

2. Communication and its traditional definition Typically, communication continues to be described as a process where: Man A sends words, assembled grammatically by certain rules, through the air in little balloons into the ear of Man B, who runs them through his mental machinery and sends the response sentences in little balloons into the ear of A and so on. (Birdwhistell 1970: 67)

In this “cybernetic” view, as Birdwhistell calls it, the assumption is that the brain is a naturally good producer of logical thoughts composed of words with precise meanings which it emits under proper stimulation (Birdwhistell 1970: 66). That is, [...] good, clean, logical, rational, denotative, semantically correct utterances are emitted out of the head if the membrane between mind and the body efficiently separates this area of the body from that which produces the bad, dirty, illogical, irrational, connotative, and semantically confusing adulterants. Good communication thus takes place if the unadulterated message enters the ear of the receiver and goes through a clean pipe into an aseptic brain.

(Birdwhistell, op. cit.: 66)

In this perspective, communication is about transferring, reception and matching, and these are the words that appear in the conventional definitions of communication.

3. Critique of the conventional models of communication Communication as history. The critique of conventional models targets the absence of the historical aspect of communication in those models. Thus, for example, the idea of communication as a process enacting history is captured in Bourdieu’s concept of habitus (Bourdieu, 1995: 54). He defines habitus as an active presence of past experiences, a network of individual and collective practices, deposited in each organism in the form of schemes of perception, thought and action, thus guaranteeing the ‘correctness’ of practices and their constancy over time, more reliably than all formal rules and explicit norms (Bourdieu, ibid.).

We can think of habitus as “dispositions to think and act in certain ways rooted in our discursive histories" (Lantolf & Pavlenko 1995: 116-117). This makes the act of understanding always individual, but shaped by the practices of society in interaction with us (Lian, 2004):

Language [...] lies on the borderline between oneself and the other. The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes “one’s own” only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention. Prior to this moment of appropriation, the word does not exist in a neutral and impersonal language […], but rather it exists in other people’s mouths, in other people’s contexts, serving other people’s intentions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one’s own. (Bakhtin, op. cit.: 294)

It would follow that to understand, and therefore be able to function, requires an understanding of complex value systems. Communication, in this sense, cannot be seen or be treated as a “closed world” (Bourdieu 1991: 67). To do so, Bourdieu argues, would be to forget that interactions never truly happen merely between two people, e.g. between an employer and an employee, between a French speaker and an Arabic speaker. Rather, it is entire histories of institutions, values and individuals which are played out in each interaction and which give meaning to these interactions (Bourdieu, op. cit.: 67). Bourdieu illustrates this process by describing communication as involving the interlocutors in reacting to conditions which are not objective in absolute terms. Their objectivity, and hence reality, is socio-historically constructed (Bourdieu 1995: 97).

Thus, in the process of meaning-making, history functions as a constraining mechanism which, nevertheless, brings with it an element of unpredictability. This is because of its discursive nature, and, to paraphrase Bakhtin, because of words being no more than individuals’ own intention, with their own accent, adapted and, consequently, always transformed. These transformation and adaptation aspects reflect a very important feature of communication. They tell us that communication is a context where at stake are the very dispositions by which we think and act. In this sense, communication may not, in fact, facilitate a better understanding of the world in which we live; but it certainly puts at risk the very world as we know it.

The above picture of communication is very different from the idea that sees communication as a more or less peaceful process, involving transferring, receiving and matching meanings, which takes place between specific (often two, as in the diagrams) individuals. Also, communication is often referred to as negotiation which it may be. However, the fact that communication puts to question our frames of reference suggests that, as such, it involves a process of confrontation, where histories clash and where change is brought about as a result. We describe this process better below by focusing on the three main aspects of communication:

(a) Communication is historically situated. This means, interlocutors act upon and enact discursive frames of reference. (b) Communication is directed at resolving ambiguity. Communication is a result of a perceived (existing or potential) clash or ambiguity in those frames of reference. (c) Communication is strategic. Communication is about engaging in strategies which help to reduce (prevent) ambiguity. This process involves interlocutors in questioning the confronting power of their beliefs. This power will determine their capacity to challenge their interlocutors’ assumptions which generated ambiguity in the first place (or which have the potential to do so). Ambiguity is reduced (or prevented) only, when the understandings which generated it (or which can generate it) seem no longer valid. (d) Communication brings about change. This act of questioning one’s own frames of references stimulates their re-examination, restructuring and, as a result, change in those understandings.

Thus the paradox of communication is that, whether it is generated to understand or to change others (systems, values, people), in fact, one’s very own involvement in communication brings about change in the structures of that person’s frames of reference. This transforming power of communication, or dialogue (we make no distinction), was also identified by Calhoun in his discussion of research methods: “We should not conceptualize the dialogue […] a means of sharing that which is already known, but as one of the actual bases for knowledge” (Calhoun 1995: 175).

The transforming aspect of communication shows it as a context where interlocutors act to affect each other and, in the process, also become affected. The interlocutors’ strategies directed at resolving or preventing ambiguity impact upon their own individual histories, generating change in those histories, thus contributing to their expansion. These changes will inform subsequent interactions which together will shape, what is considered to be acceptable forms of interpretation (i.e. “meanings”).

4. Future: What communication is not about? Our discussion sought to illustrate that interlocutors do not “convey meanings” in order to “create shared understandings”, as suggested in Wikipedia . This is because meanings are not independent (absolute) entities, whose qualifying features belong to no one and therefore to everyone. We have shown this by referring to Bourdieu and Bakhtin. The historical nature of the discursive frames of reference by which we act and think lends them impossible for “meaning sharing”. Furthermore, it would be very difficult to apply the idea of “needing to share meanings” in contexts where stimulating communication would be the goal. However, when we have stakes in making things happen, we do engage in communication, be it by reading, listening, talking to people, etc.

Thus, in our model, it is not the need for “sharing meanings” that stimulates communication. Instead, the need for communication arises, when the need for resolving or preventing ambiguity emerges. This engages interlocutors in very specific strategies, oriented toward practical (ambiguity reduction or prevention) goal. Any attempts to “clarify meanings”, in fact, imply a complex process. For details, see Lian, A.B. 2006 (Chapter 3). In short, the process involves interlocutors in questioning their own assumptions sufficiently in order to formulate best strategies to generate the same questioning process in their interlocutors. As said earlier, ambiguity is reduced (or prevented) only, when the assumptions on which they are based seem no longer valid.

APPLICATIONS Lian, Ania (2008). ‘Making our learning environments interactive: A critique of the concept of interaction in Second Language Acquisition studies’, in Manteiro, M. (ed.). ISLS Readings in Language Studies, Volume 1. USA. ABSTRACT - Second language research and Teaching: Our critique of Second Language Acquisition studies has helped us to develop the concept of interaction as a context where interlocutors contribute to each other by affecting each other's criteria of judgment. This reciprocity condition allowed us to propose a framework for pedagogic research which helps us to discriminate between interactive (dialogic) and non-interactive (hierarchical) learning conditions.

REFERENCES Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. Michael Holquist (ed.), (Trans. C. Emerson & M. Holquist). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Birdwhistell, R. (1970). Kinesics and context. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Bourdieu, P. (1995). The logic of practice. (Trans. R. Nice). Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lantolf, J. P. & Pavlenko, A. (1995). Sociocultural theory and second language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 15 (1), 108-124. Lian, A.-P. (2004a). Technology-enhanced language-learning environments: A rhizomatic approach. In J-B. Son (ed.), Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Concepts, contexts and practices. APACALL Series 1 (pp. 1-20). New York: iUniverse. Retrieved June 14, 2009 from http://www.andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/apacall_2004/apacall_lian_ap_tell_rhizomatic.pdf. Lian, A. B. (2006). A dialogic model of inquiry in second language teaching: Toward the concept of a critical approach to pedagogic research, PhD thesis, Brisbane: University of Queensland.

Plant communication/Witzany citations

Is anyone else perturbed by the fact that the only citations for the entire section on plant & fungi communication cites 4 papers by one "G Witzany," all without links, all from the last 4 years?

The only information I've found on Witzany is on the German Wikipedia, which describes him primarily as a philosopher (!) -- translation

And this book from 2000, Life, the Communicative Structure: A New Philosophy of Biology. Link is just an excerpt but reading it suggests that all these ideas are theory, not fact, and there does not seem to be any experimental evidence.

I'm very interested in the veracity of this research and these are raising serious red flags for me. The article's language presents Witzany's work as fact. --Jamiew (talk) 13:43, 29 June 2009 (UTC)dick

Big case of WP:REFSPAM - see User talk:83.215.123.233. SmartSE (talk) 11:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Copy-paste registration

In this edit a section is copy/paste from the visual communication article. -- Mdd (talk) 20:54, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

General communication.

    Communication is a form of interaction. In physical interaction two units change energy of contact into motivsation. This changes the interacting units as directed by the laws of nature. In communication physical interction is reduced to that between senses and electromagnetism. Senses transport organised motivating energy of electromagnetism to the brain where selected cells create electromagnetic field which acts as a 'symbol'. The symbol connects the material world with the immaterial world. Every graviton of the space occupied by the symbol rotates differently as the expression of the organisation of the symbol. The rotation is the same in both the material and the immaterial space times because immaterial gravitons are inside the material gravitons. Interaction of the reflection of the symbol in the immaterial space time with the 'self', which consists of the limit of 'I' in the 'now', creates emotion which motivates the limit of 'I', which then observes the description of the symbolised truth. Description is a plurality of truths defining the truth which is being observed. The synthesis of the description is 'meaning' of the 'symbol'. The 'self' does not observe description of the symbol itself;
    Every truth, whether material or immaterial, is the dulity of a 'body and soul'. Body of a truth is static, spatial and it is observed in the 'now'. The soul of the truth is that which is in the immaterial world. The immaterial space time contains logical and illogical laws. The illogical law allows substitution of a 'symbol' in place of the 'synthesis' of the description of the observed truth. Every truth can act as a symbol, irrespective of whether it is material or immaterial. The 'self' is conscious of itself and of the 'synthesis' of the description of that which is symbolised. There is no direct contacvt between the 'self' and the material world. Observations can be limited to within the immaterial space time only. KK (92.27.147.93 (talk) 22:51, 13 March 2010 (UTC))

header 1	header 2	header 3
row 1, cell 1	row 1, cell 2	row 1, cell 3ىتىىىىبغفثغرلاة
row 2, cell 1	row 2, cell 2	row 2, cell 3

Headline text

In the struggle for reducing the environmental impact of information and communication sector emphasis Telecommunication and wireless network, power consumption of the network has become more attention topics. Though mobile communication network are responsible of small sharing of total globally energy consumption, reducing this power consumption has become an essential key from perspective of environment impacts and operator cost views. Approximately 90 percent energy consume due to the core network, and radio access network (Mobile Station and Base Station) in wireless network and whereas the BTS is the main energy hungry component which consume maximum energy of that. Within base station, a huge amount of energy is wasted in the power amplifier and through the antenna feeder cable. This paper deals with study and analysis of the investigating power consumption in wireless network and investigating the possible way to reduce the power consumption at Base Station and characterize few linearization techniques to improve the linearity and efficiency of RF power amplifier. In this regard, we also try to characterize the amount of power, which can be saved by shutting down or putting the BCCH carrier channel or TRX on sleep mood during the low traffic period. Finally this project subsequently relates goal the power consumption reduction in wireless and mobile communication network being environmental sustainable and friendly.

Miscommunication

I typed in Miscommunication and it redirected me here, but I don't really see anything about miscommunication. --TangoFett (talk) 15:40, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Non-verbal Citation

At the end of the non-verbal section there appears to be a citation mistake. I don't know how to fix it, so someone better at that please fix it. Currently it reads:

- Other factors include posture, facial expression, eye contact, gestures, and sounds. - Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing 4 ed Potter and Perry - Non verbal communication involves the five senses - Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing 4 ed Potter and Perry

And I'm guessing the parts that say Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing 4 ed Potter and Perry are citations gone wrong.

IsmAvatar (talk) 06:02, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Oral communication

Shouldn't Subvocal_recognition be mentioned as a method of oral communication ? 81.242.234.114 (talk) 10:52, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

This page needs to be improved.Dallas Eddington (talk) 21:02, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Just look at the lack of sources and the few amount of notes, this article is in terrible condition and discussion on improvements has stopped. There is a failure to provide any real idea of where communication is derived from which is why I came to this page. Even organization seems to be an issue because it starts with human communication then talks about non-human communication then it goes back to discussing the way humans communicate. The article starts off bad because the first paragraph has issues with wording when it makes statements like "The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the sender"(Comm Wikipedia) and that is incorrectly worded because the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of understood is "fully apprehended or agreed upon" and it is not needed in order for a communicated message to be complete. For example, many times you might have found yourself receiving only half of a communicated message, and not understanding the message you have received, but communication has taken place because you have received the sender's message, understood or not. The receiving of the message completes the process, so no actual comprehension is needed and it is not always possible anyways because of factors like noise or background. I have seen someone use the statement "the communication process is complete when the message is delivered in a understand able manner" which is a far better way to phrase the completion of the process. I seriously hope people make it to this page and give it some attention and make thoughtful changes that are fully supported by academic sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Communicationhelper (talk • contribs) 08:45, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

The 90% of communication is nonverbal thing is very incorrect. "Professor Mehrabian was interviewed on BBC radio... and he was asked, "whether 93% of communication is nonverbal?" He answered, "absolutely not. And whenever I hear that misquote of my findings I cringe because it should be obvious to anybody who would use any amount of common sense that that's not a correct statement!" his personal website has the same information.

• Etymology is needed for this article. Does subj. mean '"to make common?' Marquess (talk) 03:35, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

This page is definately improved and something really more can be done in order to make it a core articles. And the fact that its one of the most important article in wiki. I have done my contributions on this i would expect others to do the same Kalivd 11:25, 21 April 2007 (UTC)This is page is so poor an introduction to the subject area that to edit it would entail rewriting it completely. I recommend anyone approaching the topic to read "On Human Communication" by Colin Cherry.

Yeah, no kidding. I've been working on a new version offline, but it's coming slowly. I'll probably just post what I have and we can take it from there. -- Stephen Gilbert 21:04, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm... I've done some incremental stuff - want to send me something offline and collaborate? Richard Pitt Nov. 16

I'd love to collaborate, but let's let others in on it too! Collaboration is Wikipedia's middle name. Er... don't ask me what its last name is...

Perhaps ignorance... in not one place is dance mentioned as a form of communication and the language used is so high that you would have to be a specialist to understand it... an encyclopedia should talk to the lowest common denominator not just those of you who have PhD's...

I've tried to work your current contributions into my sketchy notes. If anything got lost in the transition, be sure to pull it from the history and add it. -- Stephen Gilbert 19:55, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I've moved the outline here; it's more of a to-do list than article material. -- Stephen Gilbert

Stephen it is much better but still too many links and chapters. If this page is to be a proper page I think a general introduction saying something like that communication happens whenever data transfers from one sentient being to another would help a lot. --BozMo|talk 13:31, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

My name is balamurali. I majored in Organizational Communication with an emphasis in Intercultural Communication. I would be happy to add my help in cleaning up this article.

Would it first be possible to make this into a category? Of course this page would be something of a gateway to the rest of the communication articles. It would have links to the various disciplines in the study of communication. It could contain a brief definition of communication. maybe from different aspects or other disciplines. For example the opening definition is to technical. I feel it should be more basic. Wow as I read further into the article I realize this would not even qualify for any text book we used. It is wordy somewhat technical, and jumbled. I will work on that now. The sections in the article have no consistent progression. Nor do some of the sections seem to demonstrate the authors understanding of communication but rather a specific field if anything. The article must begin with an understandable definition that is not to technical. Where technical terms are needed it would be helpful to define them. Second there needs to be a some what brief though thorough history of communication beginning with something about hieroglyphics and cave paintings then on to the Greeks not the romans because they were the first rhetoricians. Then the romans because they did make significant contributions. Then on to the various periods of communication highlighting the significant points. Sub articles can be made for more lengthy discussions of various contributors and and the development of communication fields such as Mass, Oral, etc... One of my professors has a great diagram of the communication model. She used Fred and Wanda. Sender/Encoder Receiver/Decoder. This prompts a further discussion that we would need to have, what terminology to use. In my field we used sender receiver though I did come across encoder/decoder. I fucken fell last night and i know that sender receiver is less technical. Though I see no problem in includinthem both with a slash. This may pose problems in the wiki community though. Kyle.Mullaney 08:00, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

important types:
- cooperative, non-cooperative
- synchronous, asynchronous
communication - Christian Hesse 21 Sept 2006 Communication a poorly written article, yet the first result under a google search for "communication"

Do you realise that a Google search for communication gives this poorly written article as the first result? I think it is imperative we get a revised article up and running immediately (ASAP).129.123.104.5 19:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I see the main problem of managing this article in that the topic "communication" is huge.

If we split it by disciplines then we could use also the respective terminology in each discipline.

Example of a list of disciplines (compare with Communication_basic_topics):

Communication in

• engineering (asynchrounous...)
• information theory (Shannon...)
• linguistics (semantics...)
• media (advertising...)
• computer networks (tcpip...)
• philosophy (concept...)
• political science (persuasion...)
• psychology (assertive...)
• sociology (content analysis...)
• ...

Some could be just links to articles that already exist, like Information_theory. But if the communication aspect is difused then a link cannot be used.

The main article would contain only the most general information applicable to all uses.

There could be an article specialized in similarities across disciplines.

--Gogino 07:10, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

sounds good --lynX

Does anyone think the second paragraph of the intro is important? I don't think it makes tons of sense and it doesn't seem to be saying much... Warlordwolf 01:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Phapondi

What are phapondi? Is it an umbrella term to cover plants and fungi? If so I don't get any other ghits for the term. Rojomoke (talk) 13:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Never mind. It was added by an unregistered user with no other edits. On the balance of probabilities I've removed the word. Rojomoke (talk) 14:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

"Feedback is essential to communication"

I think this should read as "Feedback is critical to effective communtication between parties." Communication in the abstract simply means to transmit information. This transmission may or may not be both ways. In other words, feedback is not a defining element of communicating - reception of the message is, but the sender need not to know that the message was received by the target recpient. Let's say I receive a letter from my Grandma, and I read it, but rudely fail to reply. She has still communicated to me, just not with me. rablanken (talk) 01:39, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Computer and other Non-life-form Communication

This article does not mention communication between computers with no life forms involved. I think it should, as well as any other forms of totaly non life-form communication which may exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.20.179.178 (talk) 16:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Lead

(Penperson edited lead, Lova Falk reverted. Now copied to this page.)

Hi Penperson, and welcome to Wikipedia! I have reverted your edit to Communication. Phrasing such as "we put our thoughts and ideas into messages" is very textbook-like and "unencyclopedic". Furthermore, your sentence "this understanding of communication falls within the cybernetic tradition" is impossible to understand for the ordinary reader who doesn't know what the cybernetic tradition is. The same goes for the "transmission model". Please read WP:MOSINTRO! With friendly regards, Lova Falk talk 09:44, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Feeling my way around

Thanks for letting me know you reverted my editing on communication and why. As you've probably guessed I am new to this and still finding my way. I have reread the MOSINTRO link and understand what is supposed to happen there. But I am unsure how to proceed. Can I please clarify something with you first? Are you objecting to my use of academic words or to the thrust of the changes? I am slowly trying to resolve contradictions between various communication-related entries in as neutral a way as possible and hoped my first edit would at least set the limits for that take on communication. Can we resolve this between us for now? or is best to take it the talk page for communication? Many thanks Penperson (talk) 02:58, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Penperson, thank you for your answer! Thumbs up for your willingness to discuss this. Like As you see, I have copied our messages to this talk page, so also other editors can participate. Yes, it is a good idea to first reach consensus on the talk page before making more changes. (You can read about this process in WP:BRD - in short: be bold, get your edit reverted and discuss it.) As I said, my objections are both against using terms like "cybernetic tradition" and "transmission model", and against using textbook-like words such as "you". (Would you believe it we actually have a guideline about this as well: WP:YOU.) Lova Falk talk 08:29, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Business Communication Edit

Hello to all who are active in this Wikipedia-Communication community/page,

I'm new to Wikipedia -- for a school project I had to edit a page, something which I knew a good amount about. Business Communication is my major, so I figured I could contribute to that area of the "Communication" Page. I added some areas of internal and external communication since I thought this could be vital to the conversation, because there are numerous ways the phrase can be used. I also added some information which I saw relevant for the audience.

I was just wondering, what's the best way to go about editing the page? From what I gathered, I see that "less is more" in this page, so if you could give me some tips on how to relevantly update this page; the information I posted on the subject was significantly decreased, was this because the information was not relevant, was too wordy, or incorrect?

I'd just like to know so I have a better understanding for my next contributions.

I appreciate the constructive criticism!

Nicolecheek17 (talk) 05:40, 4 November 2014 (UTC)Nicolecheek17

Fungal structures and Plant Communication

Quick change! Fungi produce hyphae and mycelia/mycelium. Right now it's spelled Marcelia, and is hyperlinked to the element Nobelium. Was there a reason for this?

Also, would you be interested in inserting the following paragraph into your section on plant communication? Plant communication and its evolution is something I recently did a project on, so I would like to contribute some of the information to this page.

Intercellular communication and plant developmental stages are mediated through hormones. The hormones are organized into six classes including auxin, gibberellin, cytokinin, ethylene, abscisic acid, and brassinosteroids. Sites of production vary depending on the hormones, as well as their corresponding receptors depending on the purpose.

When under stresses, such as extreme weather patterns or damage from pests, it is essential to trigger hormone responses quickly. Using the classic transportation methods, apoplastic and symplastic routes, complex hormone molecules move relatively slow. In 1983, University of Washington's zoologist, Dr. David Roades discovered how plants adapted in response to this slow moving transport system. Dr. Roades was studying insect damage patterns on the forest's willows, poplars, and sugar maples (Kat McGowan, 2013). Individual trees would show signs of damage, but not their neighbors. Further testing revealed that the trees under stress were releasing volatile organic compounds(VOC) into the air in order to quickly trigger an induced defense mechanism in all parts of the plant's aerial shoot. Neighboring trees were detecting the VOC from the plant under siege, and also began producing VOC due to an awareness of oncoming danger.

McGowan, Kat. "How Plants Secretly Talk to Each Other." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 13 Dec. 2013. Web. http://www.wired.com/2013/12/secret-language-of-plants/. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Small.139 (talk • contribs) 03:46, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Family communication (section)

New here, I really Like this Communication WP article. I’ll be watching and discussing. My main interest at this time is ‘family communication’ but also ‘social media’ communication. As an example, my fine and intelligent wife didn’t like personal computers until she found eMail with our kids and grandkids. Now, she is a real pro, also on Facebook (which I avoid, except for ‘lurking’ (not contributing).) :-) ;-) … On the other hand, I have a lot of activity on LinkedIn, and she avoids LinkedIn. She loves her smart phone and I love working in politics and marketing, online. So how do we communicate and be good parent, grandparents, and family members? We communicate with:

• Family reunions and retreats; other group interaction;
• One-on-one formal and informal talks;
• Family activities, like youth soccer games;
• Phone calls; (even conference calls); Skype/etc.
• eMail one-on-one, and with distribution lists;
• Send a copy of the eMail in the US postal service;
• Better still, send personal letters, like Abe Lincoln;
• Have grandkids send art and postcards back;
• Family website(s) or a family Facebook page;
• Community sites specific to family, like FamilySearch.org
• Common family goals, tasks, and missions.

Is this a complete list for 'family' communication? -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 05:17, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Barriers to effective human communication

There's a lot of similar concepts in here that boil down to ambiguity/weasel words. But I don't see anything about outright untruth/mendacity. Surely that is a barrier? CoyneT ^talk 20:59, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

There are plenty of barriers to effective human communication in there, all right, but they're barriers to understanding the section about barriers to effective human communication. The section is not clear. 110.55.0.56 (talk) 06:17, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

enthunasia

Painless killing of someone in order to reducr pain polite (talk) 17:52, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

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Ronald

See alsoMeta-communication. RCNesland (talk) 00:11, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Article Work

Hi. I'm new to wikipedia, and will be using the education resources for a class this fall, and thought I would familiarize myself through actually getting in and doing some work. I have a lot of plans--which I hope to follow through on. I've made several edits today, to try to clean up the opening, and work toward a more coherent organization. Now that some of the global organization makes more sense (to me at least), I plan to work through editing/adding sections and information. Not entirely sure if this is the correct process to follow--but I learn by doing!Disembodied Poetics (talk) 21:01, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Lede Re-write

Having lists in the lede section is generally discouraged. Anyone else want to try improving it? Power~enwiki (talk) 22:49, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

hello, I am a student try to use Wiki for the first timeAhahaX (talk) 06:48, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm taking a crack at it. There's a lot of work to be done on this pageDisembodied Poetics (talk) 20:46, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Message Targeting

Quote: "The main steps inherent to all communication are:[2]"

Shouldn't that be: The main steps inherent to all effective communication are? Any fool can be content by making important sounding mouth noises.

In all my communication and Speech classes, "targeting," one's message is a very important step — one communicates differently about say, Health, to Joe Average, Vs. a physician. ...Or on say politics, to City Joe, Vs Farmer John, etc. After we know WHAT to say, then WHO to, only then can we: HOW to say it best.

But one need not target to blow off steam, or preach to the choir, etc. Any mouth noise will work.

Seems like that should be in the lede & intro.   WP:LEAD   Cheers!
--2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:4432:55D:B636:8FF0 (talk) 22:37, 10 August 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

I do not want to downplay the importance of "targeting" in communication, but maybe it is not always present, or is hard to fathom. I consider leaked messages as an example for this. So I do not see a strict necessity to include "targeting" in this –admittedly– sketchy list. I certainly would not add unsourced content to it. Purgy (talk) 07:36, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

For this article my main focus is communication as a academic discipline part. According to https://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/careers-advice/what-can-you-do-communications-degree there are so many careers you can do with a communication degree. You can be a business executive, human relations manager, public relations manager, marketing executive, advertising executive, media planner, web content manager, paralegal, and many many more. The field is so broad and you learn so many important skill to be successful if your future career. It depends if you want to go into the media side of it and be on television, run social media accounts, or even be a journalist. Or, you can be on the business side of it and do sales, manage company relationships, work for advertising. As you read the article you can see a brief example on what communication is but if it is you major you take these things into consideration of your everyday life. You learn skills that make you a better person in your everyday life. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arraqm (talk • contribs) 17:06, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

what about "communicating EMOTIONS to an other Beung, or even WARM to an Object?

xCOM1 " Communication (from Latin communicare, meaning "to share")[1][2][better source needed] is the act of developing meaning among entities or groups through the use of sufficiently mutually understood signs, symbols, and semiotic conventions. "

If only "MEANING", what about "communicating EMOTIONS to an other Beung, or even WARM to an Object? Khwartz (talk) 20:21, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Hey I wouldn't complain about that first sentence look at what we have now:

"Communication (from Latin communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with")[1][2][3] is "an apparent answer to the painful divisions between self and other, private and public, and inner thought and outer world."[4] As this definition indicates, communication is difficult to define in a consistent manner,[5][6] because it is commonly used to refer to a wide range of different behaviors (broadly:...."

Really? The first sentence? So nobody's doing quality control here I take it. It wasn't long ago when this was a clear and clean article. Just wondering? Was there anywhere in the article that pointed out that good communication takes hard work, real effort, real thought, real planning, with an overall vision to start?

What about the first law of communicating: Nobody is as interested in your words as you are. I'm getting tired of Wikipedia articles that shout: Look at me LOOK what I did!

Did the article explain how to differentiate between poor written communication and bad writing? --Doug Bashford — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FB91:7903:4D7C:28A9:4FFF:FE0C:F206 (talk) 14:38, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm just wondering what the problem is with the above opening. I get the sense that you don't think that this definition is "clear and clean." What do you think a "clear and clean" definition of communication is, based in the research about communication? Disembodied Poetics (talk) 00:04, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

the beginning looks like Wiktionary, not Wikipedia! and other nitpicks on the beginning

the first paragraph looks really weird. why put the etymology of the word and so on there? --I said this! [insert witty meta-text on wikipedia signatures here] 02:30, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Make you sure

M 2405:204:331A:56D5:0:0:580:E8AC (talk) 04:31, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

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Communication article evaluation

Which article are you evaluating?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

First of all, the reason I'm interested in this article is that I'm a sophomore majoring in communication. This article goes from the type of communication to the mode of communication, and finally to the communication barrier. Each aspect is explained in detail, which gives me a clearer idea of what is being studied in the field of communication. The scope of communication is very broad, and this article has helped me to better sort out its architecture. All in all, this is a good article that is rigorous.

Evaluate the article

The lead section of this article is clear, directly pointing out the definition of communication and explaining it in detail. Content is clearly listed on the left side of the interface, let's understand in the most direct way what this article specifically says. Tone and balance is neutral, without overly extreme or radical language, and the analysis is very objective. The sources cited in the article are also clearly marked. The rich pictures make us more eager to continue reading, and more intuitively feel the power of visual impact. All in all, this article I think is very rigorously written and has helped me a lot in the field of communication.

～～～～Xinning Bai

2022.1.28

23:51 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rachelbaiyyy (talk • contribs) 04:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Article EvaluationYingzhuo Yang (talk) 07:00, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Which article are you evaluating?Yingzhuo Yang (talk) 07:03, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

First of all, The reason why I choose this article is that I major in communication, and I want to know more about this knowledge. This article introduces the types of communication and research in different fields in detail, which is very important to me. For example, its different fields are divided into organizational communication, political communication, interpersonal communication, family communication and so on. Then, some details and some functions are respectively listed in these categories. These popular science are very important to me. My initial impression is that the article explains the meaning of the word "communication" and how it is used in daily life. However, after reading the whole article, I think it is very detailed. Each paragraph has a clear classification, explanation and examples, which makes it easy for people to understand. And the article mentioned in the things are also very rich, involving a wide range of things.

Evaluate the article

I think every aspect of this article is relevant to the topic and there is no distraction for me. It is well balanced in all aspects and covers all aspects. The article uses technical terms in many places and is explained carefully. There is no serious bias towards specific positions. It is rigorous and neutral. I looked at some random citations, and the links and sources were reliable. And the sources are all from different authors and publications. I checked the history of this article and found that it was originally written in 2001 and has been continuously revised. This article has a warning sign that it contains instructions, advice, or how-to content. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to train. Please help improve this article by rewriting the action method content or moving it to Wikiversity, Wikibooks, or Wikivoyage.

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Communication Article Evaluation

Which article are you evaluating?

https://en.wikipedia/wiki/communication

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

I chose this article because it is directly related to my course topic in class. This article discusses many different aspects of communication including the types, how it is used, and what prevents communication. This is an important article for giving a very basic rundown of communication and what it means to communicate within different settings and types of relationships. This article is very detailed and clear while still keeping it concise and easy to read.

Evaluate the article

The lead section of this articles seems to be nicely developed, however, a younger audience or someone who is not academically developed, may not understand the introductory sentence. This sentence is meant to be clear but it instead is a quote from John Durham Peters, a media historian. The rest of the lead seems to consist of only the major points of the entire article without including unnecessary jargon or information that is left out of the rest of the article.

The content section of the article is relevant to the topic of communication because it includes all of the major principles such as types; origin; different models; the things that could prevent communication; and communication between nonhuman beings. There is a 'warning banner' stating that the article contains instructions, advice, or how-to content which I did not find, but what I did find was that the 'Barriers to effectiveness' section seemed a lot like a scientific journal with language that the everyday reader may not understand.

Trying to read it from the point-of-view of an everyday reader the article did seem neutral and purely informative while making sure that any persuasive talk is left out to ensure that the reader isn't being pushed to believe something about communication in a biased way.

With 64 references in the reference section, it appears they all work except for one, which is a missing or empty link to a source. Aside from this, the sources seem to be from a very wide range of authors with a wide range of job titles. There were seven different images used for this article, all relevant to the topic, and all with clear captions as to what the image was displaying.

The article is broken down into categories based on relevant topics in communication, then into sub-topics within. This is great because it made the article very easy to read and follow. Aside from that Barriers to Effectiveness section, the article was concise with no grammar or spelling mistakes (that I noticed).

Along with what seems to be one troll post on the Talk Page there are also a few others who have evaluated this article. The article as a whole has been given a C-rating and is a part of 10 different WikiProjects. I believe that the only difference in the way it's discussed on Wikipedia vs in class is that the article is short and to the point. This article tells the reader the basics of would you would need to know but to truly understand the topic you would have to go into much greater detail.

I found the overall article to be sufficient in its discussion on communication. The biggest strength was the organization, which made it very easy to read. However, there were a few times I noticed it sounding too scientific for the everyday reader to understand. TiffaniHiett (talk) 23:05, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2022 and 16 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Abigaelclark, Irot2002 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Heba.Aweiwi. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abigaelclark (talk • contribs) 02:31, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Language

Communication (from the Latin communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with")[1][2][3] is "an apparent answer to the painful divisions between self and other, private and public, and inner thought and outer world."[4] As this definition indicates, communication is difficult to define in a consistent manner,[5][6] because in common use it refers to a very wide range of different behaviors involved in the propagation of information.[7] John Peters argues the difficulty of defining communication emerges from the fact that communication is both a universal phenomenon (because everyone communicates) and a specific discipline of institutional academic study.[8]

One definitional strategy involves limiting what can be included in the category of communication (for example, requiring a "conscious intent" to persuade[9]). 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.

In Claude Shannon's and Warren Weaver's influential[10][11] model, human communication was imagined to function like a telephone or telegraph.[12] Accordingly, they conceptualized communication as involving discrete steps:

The formation of communicative motivation or reason.Message composition (further internal or technical elaboration on what exactly to express).Message encoding (for example, into digital data, written text, speech, pictures, gestures and so on).Transmission of the encoded message as a sequence of signals using a specific channel or medium.Noise sources such as natural forces and in some cases human activity (both intentional and accidental) begin influencing the quality of signals propagating from the sender to one or more receivers.Reception of signals and reassembling of the encoded message from a sequence of received signals.Decoding of the reassembled encoded message.Interpretation and making sense of the presumed original message.

These elements are now understood to be substantially overlapping and recursive activities rather than steps in a sequence.[13] For example, communicative actions can commence before a communicator formulates a conscious attempt to do so,[14] as in the case of phatics; likewise, communicators modify their intentions and formulations of a message in response to real-time feedback (e.g., a change in facial expression).[15] Practices of decoding and interpretation are culturally enacted, not just by individuals (genre conventions, for instance, trigger anticipatory expectations for how a message is to be received), and receivers of any message operationalize their own frames of reference in interpretation.[16]

The scientific study of communication can be divided into:

Information theory which studies the quantification, storage, and communication of information in general;Communication studies which concerns human communication;Biosemiotics which examines communication in and between living organisms in general.Biocommunication which exemplifies sign-mediated interactions in and between organisms of all domains of life, including viruses.

Communication can be realized visually (through images and written language), through auditory, tactile/haptic (e.g. Braille or other physical means), olfactory, electromagnetic, or biochemical means (or any combination thereof). Human communication is unique for its extensive use of abstract language 2409:4055:2E0E:5300:D894:8A43:4141:123E (talk) 14:40, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Media Culture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 August 2022 and 12 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Skylaramirault1229, Izzybeardsley, Nscanlonn28 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Skylaramirault1229 (talk) 17:34, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• History of communication.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:37, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Lead image

I wanted to ask what other people think about the current lead image ([1]). I don't think it's too bad, but it's not a typical everyday form of communication and it's not clear on the first look how this relates to communication. I thought an image of some people talking would be better, either as a photograph or as a diagram. What do you think of one of the following as a potential replacement? Or should the image stay, maybe with a better caption?

• 
  1
• 
  2
• 
  3
• 
  4
• 
  5

Phlsph7 (talk) 11:03, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Caption could be here.

While I like some of your images (especially the sculpture you chose for the article) I like them esthetically, but not for this article. I think it's no coincidence, that every image you chose was actually about a *much* narrower topic, namely, human spoken conversation. this is far too limiting, imho, for an article about communication. As far as that goes, the previous image, the "Sounds of Earth" record cover was broader. (Although I can't help thinking the person who placed that one, was actually thinking of the gold-plated plaque placed on the Pioneer spacecrafts and maybe couldn't come up with it, which was an actual attempt by humanity to communicate with alien civilizations.)

If you get a lot of suggestions, or can't come up with just one image, consider a collage. There was a brief kerfuffle at List of French monarchs, until a collage there quieted the waters. Plus, in a collage, you get to please everybody (well, not everybody, but more than just a minority) with the multiple images. Btw, if you do consider a collage, and include a few images of human conversation, I'd like to see at least one of them portray two people speaking in sign language. Mathglot (talk) 09:49, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

There are many forms of communication. They include human linguistic communication using sounds, gestures, and written signs (first row) as well as animals exchanging information and attempts to communicate with extraterrestrial lifeforms (second row).

Hello Mathglot and thanks for your suggestions. Human spoken communication is the most paradigmatic form of communication but you are right that there are many other forms besides it. Using a collage of images is a good idea for emphasizing just how broad the topic of communication is. I don't want to push it too far so maybe limiting ourselves to 6 images might be a good idea. What do you think of the following? I'm not particularly attached to one of those images in case you have different preferences. I think the main point should be to portray quite different forms. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:27, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Wasn't too crazy about the bird, partly because of the cropping, and partly because of the unnatural background, but there's about a zillion singing birds on Commons, so you won't have any trouble finding one you like. Also, I prefer the Pioneer plaque image over the Voyager record cover. Would be good to get additional opinions, though. Mathglot (talk) 03:51, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

There are many forms of communication. They include human linguistic communication using sounds, gestures, and written signs (first row) as well as animals exchanging information and attempts to communicate with extraterrestrial lifeforms (second row).

With these changes we would have the multi-image on the right. It works fine for me. More input from other editors would be welcome. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:19, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Can you ping a few WikiProjects so we can solicit more feedback? Mathglot (talk) 07:24, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that this is necessary since the two of us are in agreement and it doesn't seem to be a controversial change. I suggest we wait for a day or two to see if we get some more feedback and otherwise we go ahead with the change. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:16, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Okay. Mathglot (talk) 10:18, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

The new/expanded collage approach looks great; in particular I like the evoking of such a wide range of forms across human history and the natural world. I appreciate the way this approach can prompt the reader to think "oh, that IS communication, isn't it". It's a bit odd to me that the caption's sole link is to extraterrestrial life...seems a bit undue. Kaylea Champion (talk) 05:15, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I've added two more links to the caption. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:38, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Types of communication

I wanted to get some feedback on how to best organize the section "Types". In its current form, it only distinguished between two types: verbal and non-verbal communication. However, there are many other types that should be included as well. They should at least include interpersonal communication vs intrapersonal communication and human communication vs non-human communication. But there are countless others. Some are distinguished by the channel (wireless communication, visual communication, Computer-mediated communication, Telecommunication) or some by the social context where it is taking place (business communication, military communication, intercultural communication, political communication, scientific communication). Still other categories include health communication, risk communication, asynchronous communication, and interactive communication. Some of these types are already discussed in other sections in our article. For example, we have a whole section for non-human communication and the section "As an academic discipline" talks about political communication and family communication. To me it seems that they should all be covered in the section "Types". We may have to reduce some of the details in the process to comply with WP:SUMMARY. I thought it might be good to get some feedback on this ideas before I get started since it would involve changes to various other sections as well.

@Mathglot: we had a similar discussion about the different forms of communication a few weeks ago so your input would be appreciated if you have the time. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:19, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

I think you could be bold in this respect and make your changes and see what happens, although it's a fine idea to raise this discussion section here first, and hopefully there will be more feedback. (You could ping a WikiProject or two.) The only thing I would say, is don't rely too much about what other types of communication are present in this article, in other articles about communication, or in the list of articles found in Categories, as all of that is unreliable per WP:WPINARS. Instead, we should be going to the source, that is to say, to WP:SECONDARY sources for verifiability. Since there is such a vast array of secondary sources about the topic, it would be perfectly appropriate to start your research with WP:TERTIARY sources (college textbooks, encyclopedias, etc.) which are reliable, peer-reviewed, sources which should accurately reflect the mix of secondary sources that are out there. Reading the tertiary sources will give you a sense of proportion as to how much of the topic of "communication" as a whole is devoted to those different types you list above, and that should guide how we divide it up here. Per WP:DUE WEIGHT, views that are only expressed by a "tiny minority" of reliable secondary sources should not be covered at all in the article, although you could list them in the MOS:SEEALSO section. The tertiary sources should be a good proxy for that. Mathglot (talk) 17:52, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. The reference to secondary and tertiary sources is some solid advice for this issue. There are many sources that cover the main distinctions I listed above, i.e. verbal vs non-verbal, interpersonal vs intrapersonal, and human vs non-human. Sources for most of the other types can be found as well but I doubt that they deserve an in-depth discussion. The main issue with the other types of communication are present in this article is to avoid redundancy. For example, if non-human communication and interpersonal communication are discussed in the types-section then they probably shouldn't have additional sections later in the article. I'll give it some more time for feedback to come in but chances are that I'll have to be bold on this one. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:59, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Good plan. These links may help:

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

France sources: Bing · Cairn · DuckDuckGo · E. Universalis · Gallica · Google · (books · scholar) · Persée · Qwant

Not sure if you read French, but I included that one mainly because the French template includes some encyclopedic sources, and in particular, I find Qwant useful (even in English, though less so) and sometimes Enc. Universalis also. Mathglot (talk) 19:46, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. To find new sources, I mostly use google, google books, and google scholar. I wasn't aware of Qwant but I'll give it a try. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:54, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Listed at: WT:LINGUISTICS, WT:SOCIOLOGY, WT:TECHNOLOGY. Mathglot (talk) 20:11, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I had a short look at some of the sources. Chandler's "A Dictionary of Media and Communication" has some useful entries. The entry "communication" distinguishes between human and non-human communication and also refers to the distinctions between interpersonal vs intrapersonal as well as verbal vs non-verbal. It has also entries on interpersonal communication, intrapersonal communication, verbal communication, and non-verbal communication. These distinctions are also discussed in the introduction of Narula's "Handbook of Communication". The "Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies" by Watson James and Hill Anne has entries on interpersonal, intrapersonal, and non-verbal communication. Marcel Danesi's "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics, Media, and Communication" discusses many of these and similar distinctions in the entries "communication", "communication, animal", and "communication, verbal". "Communication in Humans and Other Animals" by Gisela Håkansson and Jennie Westander is a great source for the distinction between human and non-human communication but also discusses verbal vs non-verbal communication. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:27, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

A bit disappointed we haven't had more response to this, thus far. From my PoV, I'm most interested in proper balance, per Wikipedia's policy of WP:DUE WEIGHT, as well as any errors of omission (or content that is there but shouldn't be). I I would like to see this article reorganized more in in WP:Summary style, where this article is the parent article and tip of the pyramid of a hierarchy of numerous sub-articles about various aspects of Communication. Longer sections here should be shortened and simplified, with detailed content moved to the appropriate child article, where the actual detail should be contained. Missing aspects of Communication should be added here as brief, summary sections (unless they are further down the chain, and should be sub-articles of the child articles). User:Khascall, can you weigh in here? I noticed this edit of yours at Communication theory (tipped off by the Wiki Edu blog), and your thoughts could help. (There's a previous, less-important discussion about images above, and your input is welcome there, too.) Thanks in advance, Mathglot (talk) 21:09, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I think we are in agreement here about the basic point. I already took one step in this direction by removing the in-depth discussion of two specific communication models and replacing it with a more general overview of the topic. I think something similar is needed for the sections "Types", "As an academic discipline", and "Nonhuman". Maybe some of the details discussed in these sections could be moved to the corresponding main articles. As mentioned earlier, I would rework the section "Types" and try to incorporate (a shortened version of) the section "Nonhuman" into it. It will probably take me a few more days to get started. The section "As an academic discipline" should probably be renamed to "Communication studies" and just provide a general overview of it instead of picking a few topics and discussing them in detail, as it does currently. I could also take care of this but I would also be happy to share the work if someone else wants to give it a go. Phlsph7 (talk) 22:25, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

About the rename: because "Communication studies" is a set phrase for the name of the discipline, I think that name would be okay in this case. But note that four of the header names of subsections of § As an academic discipline are in violation of MOS:NOBACKREF, and all four of them need to be renamed, to remove the word "Communication" from the header. This is not so important a point, but something to get to eventually. Mathglot (talk) 06:32, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Structure of new sections

I agree that a summary-style article is a good goal. As the lead part of the article says, the trouble is that we have a discipline and a field and a phenomenon all sharing a name, and they're all different things. The discipline is probably the best source of information about how best to structure knowledge about the topic, while the field is closer to what the thing is, which confounds every effort to distinguish them all :). In fact the lead very quickly tumbles into an academic rabbit hole. We don't want to break too much new ground here in terms of how to organize things, but to me it seems like serving readers requires that we adapt what's out there just a bit to avoid conflating discipline-field-phenomenon.

@Phlsph7 -- if you wanted to propose a skeleton outline here with headers to illustrate a potential pyramid I'd give some feedback. For example -- and please, rip this apart, but here's what I see from the discussion above, with a few additions of my own but also trying to avoid terms that mean a lot to comm scholars and instead use terms that to me seem more recognizable:

• Human
  • Mediums
    • Verbal
    • Non-verbal
      • Touch (instead of haptics)
      • Gesture and expression (instead of kinesics)
      • Body position (instead of proxemics)
      • Paralanguage (unless there's something better; vocalics seems right out)
  • Contexts and purposes
    • News, entertainment, and persuasion
      • Journalism
      • Misinformation
      • Propaganda
    • In relationships
    • For work and collaboration
    • Etc etc
• Non-Human
  • Mediums
  • Contexts and purposes
• As a Discipline
  • (and here we could crib a scholarly naming structure)

And thanks @Mathglot for calling me in to the discussion. Kaylea Champion (talk) 05:58, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Kaylea for your reply. (I just lost a longish reply due to a glitch and am a bit annoyed, but I'll try to recover the main points.) First, thanks for proposing the detailed breakdown; I was looking for proposals exactly of this type, and this looks great. (I had a few questions I went into, which I'll just summarize: would you include computer to computer communication, or would the definition exclude it? What about human–animal (Washoe, Koko, etc.) and animal–animal? What about non-language paralinguistic phenomena?) Before posting, I had looked around at some tertiary sources including the 'communication' article at Britannica online (click 'Table of Contents', and then the drop-down arrows), and while their top-level defines it as 'social behavior' and so excludes some subtopics that I feel could be relevant for a completely general article at a top level, it's a useful comparison. I also checked some foreign language Wikipedias for their articles, and of the ones I browsed, Catalan, French, and Portuguese had the best organizational structure (full list here). I forget my other points and it's late, so I'll check in again another time. Oh yeah: I like the idea of simplified terms in most of the article, then switching to the more precise academic terminology in the last section. (As needed, we could have a "Terminology" section or subsection, just to introduce some terms, or define them inline, or with explanatory notes, or wikilinks.)

P.S., if you subscribe to this discussion (see link top right by the section header) then you'll get notified whenever someone posts here, and we won't have to ping each other. I'm subscribed, so you needn't ping me any longer. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 08:07, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Hello Khascall and thanks for the concrete and detailed feedback. If I understand your proposal correctly, there should be no section named "Types". Instead, the different types are discussed as main sections. My previous suggestion was different but your idea also makes sense since there is a lot of material to be covered and squeezing it all into one section might be too much.

I like the subdivision between "Mediums" and "Contexts and purposes" for the section "Human". But we should add one more category for interpersonal vs intrapersonal. I agree with the topics you mention but I'm not sure that all the subsub and subsubsub sections should actually be included in section form rather than relegating them to regular paragraphs. As far as I'm aware, non-human communication is usually subdivided based on species, like animal communication, plant communication, and interspecies communication. I would have to do some more research to get down the details about what to include as subsections and what to present merely in paragraph form (especially about the details of the non-human section) but it could take roughly the following form:

• Human
  • Mediums
    • Verbal
    • Non-verbal
  • Interpersonal and intrapersonal
  • Contexts and purposes
• Non-human
  • Animal
  • Plant
  • Bacteria
  • Interspecies

As for computer-computer communication: it would be a good idea to mention it but I'm not sure it deserves its own section. Maybe we can fit it into the "Contexts and purposes": it's not human, strictly speaking, but it serves human purposes. Or it could be mentioned in the non-human section. As for the comments on the lead, it's probably best to fix the body of the article first and then structure the lead in such a way as to provide a short overview of the contents of the article, which, hopefully, does not tumble into an academic rabbit hole. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:08, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm ok with leaving the lowest level headers out as we talk; perhaps the headers won't be needed but to me they are illustrative of the content that might belong in a place, while we're talking outline. For what it's worth, there's a whole field's worth of content for both computer-human communication and computer-computer communication, so it might make sense to make a nice big spot for it to begin with. It also might make sense to break apart inter- and intra-. Maybe something like this:

• Human
  • Mediums
    • Verbal
    • Non-verbal
  • Interpersonal
  • Intrapersonal
  • Contexts and purposes
• Non-human
  • Animal
  • Plant
  • Bacteria
  • Interspecies
• Human-Computer (Or human-machine)
• Computer-Computer (Or machine-machine)

Kaylea Champion (talk) 16:33, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

One other thing I notice -- 'as a discipline' fell out of your outline (and mine). Probably it needs to go back in? Also, I see that the current article has a whole section on 'barriers to communication' -- maybe that material should be woven into the subsections where the material applies, rather than having its own header?. Editing myself here:

• Human
  • Mediums
    • Verbal
    • Non-verbal
  • Interpersonal
  • Intrapersonal
  • Contexts and purposes
• Non-human
  • Animal
  • Plant
  • Bacteria
  • Interspecies
• Human-Computer (Or human-machine); here maybe the thing to do is transclude the HCI article lead or something similar
• Computer-Computer (Or machine-machine); brief description and ample pointers to such pages as computer network, the networks disambig, API, business process automation
• Communication studies

Kaylea Champion (talk) 22:41, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I thought the outline was only intended for issues pertaining to the problem of types. The issues discussed so far mainly pertain to the current sections "Types" and "Nonhuman" and to some extent to the section "As an academic discipline". In order to avoid trying too much at once, I would only tackle them and leave the rest of the article as it is for now. Understood in this sense, the outline works fine for me. It will take me a while to do the research, salvage the material already here, and come up with new contents. I'm not sure that tertiary sources support having two computer-related main sections but I'll see what I can find. I have some rough ideas for changes to the section "Barriers to effectiveness" but this would probably be too much for now and can be approached separatedly. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:01, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

I definitely understand wanting to take on a piece at a time for the writing/rewriting; having an overall map for the target shape might help get there since it clarifies both what will go where and what won't go where, as it were :). Kaylea Champion (talk) 16:50, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Implementation and new ideas

Ok, I went ahead with the first steps toward implementing the ideas discussed here. Having the overview map here was definitely helpful so thanks for helping out. I renamed the section "Types" to "Human" and added the sections "Interpersonal", "Intrapersonal", and "Contexts and purposes". I also implemented the changes concerning the section "Communication studies" by moving many of the details to more specific articles. I replaced the text with a more general overview. Some unsourced contents were removed in the process. I also rewrote the introduction of the section "Nonhuman" and the subsection "Animal" since they lacked sources.

There are still many parts of the suggestion that haven't been implemented yet, like the planned sections "Interspecies" and "Computer". There are also some changes necessary to the current sections. For example, many paragraphs in the subsection "Verbal" are unsourced. I've already prepared some contents but it will take me a little more time to get them into shape. Please let me know if you have more ideas and if the changes so far are roughly in tune with what you had in mind. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:58, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

This is looking great! Is there a part of this that you'd just as soon farm out to someone else (i.e. me :D)? Kaylea Champion (talk) 23:58, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

There were a few things I wanted to address, which are still in raw notes form, but I don't have time to make a narrative, so I'll just throw out some ideas which may or may not make sense:

• Intrapersonal - what about (infant) babbling, and the transition from babbling to words; is that just language learning, and is it "communication"
• History – what about a history section? Did it change much from antiquity to dawn of Industrial rev? The 19th c. in particular was very fruitful
  • major changes just before/during Civil war; wagon train > pony express > telegraph; also, battle signaling: drum, bugle, whistle, wigwag flags or torches (A.J. Myer and Edward Porter Alexander)
• remote communication (not written): smoke, semaphore, shouts, relay signalling (mtn-top to mtn-top)
• dance communication: Kathakali dance contains messages about religious epics encoded in poses and facial expressions
• Beacon; fires, lighthouses, mirrors, church bells, whistles (dogs; shepherding)
• Homing pigeon
• non-language: int'l road signs (esp. Europe)
• dramatic gesture: silent movies (silent theater?); song

Sorry it isn't organized; back later. Mathglot (talk) 01:32, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

This is still a rather big project so I would be happy for all the help I can get. I haven't done much in relation to the computer content except for reading through two sources and compiling quotations so this might be a good fit. I've put the material in the subsection below. This is probably not enough so more research would be needed. I was thinking about having only one section roughly the length of the section "Communication studies" but I'm also open to different ideas. It could cover points like how signals are exchanged between computers (like wire vs wireless), the problem of having a common standard (communication protocol, synchronous vs asynchronous), what problems arise (transmission errors and security concerns), how these problems are addressed (eg redundancy and encryption), and how humans interact with computers (eg text-based vs Graphical user interface, input devices). Feel free to get started on this if it suits you.

I think Mathglot's idea of having a history section is also a good idea that could be done as a separate project. This could take the form of going through the development of the different forms of communication technology in the widest sense (like pictographic and alphabetic writing, printing, newspaper, telephone, radio, television, internet, and the other changes Mathglot mentioned) and tracing what impact they had on how information was exchanged. I've added some material in a subsection below on what I have so far. They are not quotes so the text could be used as it is, but I haven't done any editing or review on it.

For some of the sections, I've already done a lot of research and compiled some material so it might be easier if I continue myself on them. But if you have a specific section in mind then we could start a draft page where I share what I already have and we work together on it. We should make sure that we don't write the same section twice.

Mathglot, thanks also for the additional suggestions. Most of them belong to non-verbal communication. I've already prepared some material on this and I'll try to include these ideas. As for infant babbling, I'm not sure if this is communication and, if so, whether it is intrapersonal or interpersonal. Maybe it is communication in some cases but not in others. The source on self-regulation through egocentric speech only talks about children around the age of 3 but does not mention infants. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:30, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Kaylea, any thoughts on babbling, or the rest? Mathglot (talk) 22:32, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I implemented the next few steps discussed here: I rewrote the subsections "Verbal", "Non-verbal", "Plants and fungi", and "Bacteria quorum sensing". In the process, I decided to merge the last two subsections into one since bacteria communication is usually not mentioned in the tertiary sources on communication and dedicating a whole subsection to it might overemphasize its importance. I've also added a subsection on interspecies communication and found a way to mention babbling in the non-verbal section.

@Khascall: I would go ahead myself with the sections on computer and history unless you (or someone else) intend to write them. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:07, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Ok, I've added the corresponding sections and I rewrote the lead to provide an overview of the article in its current form. I think for now, I'm mostly done with the bigger changes. I'm planning to get the article ready for a good article nomination and there are still a few outstanding issues, like making sure that all book references have ISBNs and page numbers as well as addressing a few cases of WP:OVERCITE and MOS:DUPLINK. I'll also see if I can find a few more images for the body of the article. Please let me know if there are further issues that should be addressed before the nomination. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:46, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, definitely don't let me slow you down -- I think I'm not sure how to step inside your mental process and make use of your notes. A GA nom sounds very exciting. Kaylea Champion (talk) 05:52, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Broad-concept article?

Another possible issue I wanted to raise, is in in response to Kaylea's comment above about the polysemy of " a discipline and a field and a phenomenon all sharing a name, and they're all different things". This right away made me think of a broad-concept article, which might just fit the bill here. Have a look at WP:BCA, especially the examples section. If you're not familiar with this type of Wikipedia article structure, let it percolate for a while, because it's neither a disambig page, nor quite like a more typical article about a single topic.

If we go with a BCA, what I would envision is a "one– or two–page" monograph with three main body sections, each one corresponding to one of the related (but distinct) meanings you mentioned, the whole topped by a lead. It should do a good job of clarifying the different meanings, and each section would have a {{Main}} link to a (probably) parenthetically distinguished subarticle, such as Communication (discipline), Communication (field), and Communication (phenomenon) (or suggest better names?), each of which would be parent in summary style to further decomposition of their respective subjects.

In this scheme, the BCA would be a fairly brief read, but should still introduce all three main ideas, describe them, give a few examples or descriptions of top-level of importance, and explain how they are similar or different from the others (or maybe the lead could handle that last point). It would be a lot less long and scary (for our younger readers) than a long Communications parent article that would have to cover the ground of all three, and make it easier to grasp what we mean by the topic at a very high level, without going into a ton of detail. (At least, that would be the intent). If we go that route, it would mean keeping the current title, and shipping most of the content out to the three new child articles.

Such an approach might also imply the creation of, and suggest the structure of a possible new, "Communication" navigation template, to supplement the existing one at Template:Communication studies, which currently only covers one of the three meanings. If a Broad-concept article seems like a possible approach here, please have a look at WP:BCA and let me know your thoughts about this. Mathglot (talk) 08:49, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Your suggestion, while intriguing, would constitute an even more radical change to the article. It would also involve creating various new articles for the corresponding subdivision. I'm not sure how exactly the distinction between "Communication (discipline)" and "Communication (field)" is going to work. I assume "Communication (discipline)" corresponds to "Communication studies" and "Communication (phenomenon)" refers to the act of transmitting information. The main meaning of "communication" is the act of transmitting information. So it makes sense to have this article mainly about this transmission, how it is defined, what models of it exist, what types of it there are, etc. We already cover the secondary meaning "Communication (discipline)" by having the section "As an academic discipline" on it. If I understand WP:BCA correctly, then our article is already a Broad-concept article and your suggestions would be one way to implement it, among others. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:46, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

It would be a radical change (for the better, I think), but it wouldn't be a difficult one, as it would mostly entail moving stuff around, and summarizing as needed. But it needn't be done all at once. We can stick to just the things you brought up originally, and when that's all done (whenever that might be; no hurry) then if there's consensus for moving towards a BCA approach, we can do that as a second phase. So we can shelve it for now, and come back to it later. As for your questions about Kaylea's three-part division, I had some of the same questions, as well. Mathglot (talk) 10:19, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. Let's stick to one radical change at a time. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:28, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I think that's fine; the communication as a field and communication as a discipline distinction is a bit academic in itself, so maintaining separate articles on all three might be a little unintuitive and require a lot of wiki-gardening to maintain. FWIW communication 'as a discipline' is comparable to something like sociology (defined mostly by a way of analyzing) while communication 'as a field' is comparable to something like biology (defined mostly by a range of phenomena). Kaylea Champion (talk) 16:20, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Quotations on computer communication

"Standards have come to play a dominant role in the information communications marketplace. Virtually all vendors of products and services are committed to supporting international standards."

"The fundamental purpose of a communications system is the exchange of data between two parties."

"To communicate, a device must interface with the transmission system." "there must be some form of synchronization between transmitter and receiver. The receiver must be able to determine when a signal begins to arrive and when it ends."

"exchange management: If data are to be exchanged in both directions over a period of time, the two parties must cooperate" "certain conventions must be decided on. These conventions might include whether both devices may transmit simultaneously or must take turns, the amount of data to be sent at one time, the format of the data, and what to do if certain contingencies such as an error arise."

"Error detection and correction are required in circumstances where errors cannot be tolerated. This is usually the case with data processing systems. For example, in transferring a file from one computer to another, it is simply not acceptable for the contents of the file to be accidentally altered."

"Next are the related but distinct concepts of addressing and routing. When more than two devices share a transmission facility, a source system must indicate the identity of the intended destination. The transmission system must assure that the destination system, and only that system, receives the data"

"Message formatting has to do with an agreement between two parties as to the form of the data to be exchanged or transmitted, such as the binary code for characters."

"Frequently, it is important to provide some measure of security in a data communications system. The sender of data may wish to be assured that only the intended receiver actually receives the data"

"Information can be communicated by converting it into an electromagnetic signal and transmitting that signal over some medium, such as a twisted-pair telephone line. The most commonly used transmission media are twisted-pair lines, coaxial cable, optical fiber cable, and terrestrial and satellite microwave."

Wide Area Networks vs Local Area Networks

"Human-computer interaction (HCI) is the study of how people use computers, with the aim of making them easier to use." "This can be used to help to understand the difficulties that people have with using computer programs and to generate recommendations for the design of better interfaces (i.e., how the user will interact with the computer)." "One major development has been the creation of graphical user interfaces such as the Macintosh user interface and Microsoft Windows. Instead of typing commands in order to manipulate, copy, and organize files, users can move small graphical representations (“icons”) of the files and folders."

"If there are one thousand items, things are much more complicated. That explains in part why, despite the popularity of graphical user interfaces, text-based interfaces are still used." "Consistency in interfaces greatly increases their usability. Consistency can be external (i.e., it is similar to other, familiar interfaces) and also internal (i.e., two different parts of the system are similar)."

"Similarly, textual design— choosing the names of menu options, actions, words on buttons, and so on—is harder than it might first appear. In designing a system and choosing those names, what should a certain option be called? Is it a technical term?" "It’s not my fault if they can’t be bothered to learn to use my system.” However, few users read the manual. People are too busy, they want to learn by doing, and often they have had such unproductive experiences with poorly written manuals that they are unwilling to take that route. Thus, designers must strive to make systems as easy to use as possible, so users can guess the most likely action that they should try." "If designers could improve interfaces, they could create substantial productivity gains for the users of computer systems."

"The design of interfaces involves both hardware and software. "

"Designing web pages, including interactive pages for shopping, pose whole new challenges for HCI. Online customers can be impatient, and if a website is difficult to use, they will very rapidly move on to a competitor’s site and make their purchases there."

References

Stallings, William (2014). Data and Computer Communications. Pearson. ISBN 9780133506488.

Material on the history of communication

In early societies, most knowledge was passed on through oral communication, often in the form of stories or wise sayings. One problem with this form is that it does not produces stable knowledge since many details often change form storyteller to storyteller and depends on the imperfect human memory to not get lost inbetween the tellings.

These problems are avoided by written communication, which is much more efficient at perserving knowledge. Most early written communication happened through pictograms. Pictograms are graphical symbols that convey meaning by visually resembling real world objects. China and Sumeria were some of the earliest cultures to develop complex pictographic writing systems. Examples of pictograms in modern everyday life include signs of male and female figures on bath rooms and no-smoking signs as well as many icons used on computer screens. In contrast, most modern forms writing systems are phonographic or alphabetic. They use symbols, so-called graphemes, to represent represent units of sound, called phonemes.

The development of print was an important innovation for written communication since it constitutes an inexpensive way to mass-produce written documents instead of manually copying them by hand.

The progression of written communication can be divided into three "information communication revolutions":

1. Written communication first emerged through the use of pictographs. The pictograms were made in stone, hence written communication was not yet mobile. Pictograms began to develop standardized and simplified forms.
2. The next step occurred when writing began to appear on paper, papyrus, clay, wax, and other media with commonly shared writing systems. Communication became mobile.
3. The final stage is characterized by the transfer of information through controlled waves of electromagnetic radiation (i.e., radio, microwave, infrared) and other electronic signals.

References

Some thoughts from a non-human contributor

You've probably all noticed the intense buzz about Open AI's chatbot. and I've been playing with it and have been as impressed as everybody else. Here is the bot's view of an organizational structure for the article, as well as some thoughts about the lead, and sourcing:

ChatGPT's suggestion for an outline of a Wikipedia article on Communication

It didn't do too badly, although per WP:NOTMANUAL, Wikipedia doesn't do "tips", but maybe adjusting IV.3 from "Tips for" to "Characteristics of" would be more encyclopedic, but probably that subsection should just be dropped. Also, WP doesn't do "Conclusion" sections like an essay or monograph might, but that structure might work better for the lead. Didn't think it would do as well as it did, when I asked for sources. Also, if we use anything from its suggested lead, we should double-check against those sources to make sure they're not exact quotations, and if they are, adjust accordingly.

So, do you think my conversation with Chat GPT above was itself "communication"? Does it pass the Turing test? Mathglot (talk) 20:34, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

On second reading, all those sources sound fake ("John Smith", srsly?). The chatbot is not connected to the internet, so maybe that explains it. On the other hand, maybe it took my request as one for "sample citations", rather than real ones. Previously, I had asked for citations for medieval French poetry, and it did a great job finding real examples, so not sure what happened in this case. Mathglot (talk) 22:37, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I would say it's quite impressive for an artificial intelligence. I guess to the extent that information was exchanged, this is probably a form of communication. Concerning the lead, it's probably best to wait until we are done with the changes to body of the article before we tackle it. Phlsph7 (talk) 06:36, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely; that was by no means a suggestion to use it as a lead here, which as you say, can't be reasonably worked on until the article body gels. Mathglot (talk) 06:44, 27 December 2022 (UTC)