The Shannon-Weaver Model

Garth Beyer

The Shannon-Weaver Model, also known as the Linear Communication Model and the Mathematical Theory of Communication, demonstrates the process of communicating. It also helps you realize why the most effortless acts of communication can result in complete misinterpretation or misunderstanding.

It was in 1947 that Claude E. Shannon created this theory with the intention for it to be used in facilitating information transmission over telephone lines. Not surprisingly, it took on an entirely new role of being one of the most largely used inter-personal communication models to this day.

The model contains 8 key components: Source, Encoder, Message, Channel, Noise, Decoder, Receiver and Feedback.

Source: The source of communication is an individual creator or group of individuals who have a message they wish to be received by another individual or group. The source, or origin of the message, must also have a definite purpose of initiating the communication model.

Encoder: The encoder, also referred to as the sender or transmitter, puts the message into specific signals that will later be interpreted. The encoder must choose distinct forms of signals to represent the meaning of the message clearly.

A gesture of a handshake can be encoded as an image, but it would not work as effectively if it were put into a text format.

Message: The message is the content that is being communicated from one end of the model to the other. Naturally you will send multiple messages that are precise, rather than a single message which has too many meanings.

Channel: The channel is the path on which the message travels. The encoder, while deciding how to best transmit the message, must also consider the best path on which the transmitted message will travel. This channel can be any medium such as magazine, radio, film, internet, etc,.

Noise: Inevitably the channel is already filled with noise; anything that interferes with the transmission of the message. This can be the radio playing too loudly in the background or the encoder’s own inability to enunciate correctly.

Decoder: The decoder simply does the opposite of what the encoder does. The decoder interprets the original message in a way that the receiver will understand. Additionally, the decoder will act as a filter in the sense that the message will have as much noise removed as possible.

Receiver: The receiver is the individual or audience whom the sender had the intention to deliver the message to.

Originally the linear model of communication had stopped there. It wasn’t until Warren
Weaver worked on the fundamentals of the model and added a necessary component. Weaver made the effect of the model orbicular in the sense that he had attached feedback to the model. *See image above.

Feedback: Feedback is the receivers response to the message. The feedback’s intent is to let the encoder know exactly how accurately the message was interpreted as well as simply reporting whether the message was received or not.

Feedback allows the once linear model to become cyclical so that each party – the individual or group at each end of the model – can continue communication.

As an example, we will stick to the model’s origin by using the telephone.

You, the source, wish to convey the message that you have completed the report early to your boss. The message is then encoded as a voice message into the phone, with the phone, or the phones cable being the channel on which the message is traveling. The noise present is simply your daughter screaming in the background as you were working from home this evening. The decoder will present the message as a voice message for the receiver, your boss, to listen to. Your boss will than reciprocate the process and present you with feedback, whether that is simply telling you that you did a good job or hinting at a promotion in the future.

Your Insufflation

Garth Beyer

Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, or even the number of moments that take your breath away.

 

It’s the passion you have that keeps you breathing.

 

Stay Positive & Breathe More

Garth E. Beyer

What You Deserve

Garth Beyer

Life is not centered at giving you what you need, you’re on your own with that.

It is however, very much focused on giving you what you deserve. And so am I.

Sure it’s smart to separate your wants and needs, but for this particular case, let’s put them all in one and just call them needs. After all, everyone gets them confused anyway.

Is it safe for me to say that you have never received anything you needed for no reason? As much as we, as humans, fight the assumption, every choice we make is made on the justification that it somehow benefits us. While some people lean towards selflessness like Mother Teresa and others are predominately selfish like Hitler, it is never one or the other, both made the choices they made because it benefited them.

If prodded long enough as to why someone did what they did, it is inevitable to get a response which states that.

Typically unbeknownst, when you receive something you need, you receive it because you have worked for it – except, that you actually never worked for it, you worked for the person to give you it. Again, you are usually unaware that you have worked or will work in a way that will benefit the person who is giving you what you need. Obviously then, the bigger the need, want, desire, hope, and so on that you have, the harder you have to work.

Want to be on the ballot for the next presidential election? You have to work hard for an extremely long time and the hard work you do has to benefit as many people as possible in the largest of ways. The same goes if you want to be a successful businessperson. The same goes if you want to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Anything major in life requires major work. None of it will be given to you unless you provide the gift bearer ways that it would benefit them.

Then, while you are working hard, working smart, working more efficiently through the good and bad times in order to get what you need, life – and all it’s magic – steps in and gives you exactly what you deserve.

However, what most people fail to understand is that you can go through life working hard and never get what you deserve because to get what you deserve, you have to work on your character. What builds character? I think you can figure that one out by yourself.

In my opinion, and I am curious if you agree, I would rather go through life getting what I deserve than what I need/want/desire.

 

Stay Positive & Work On Yourself And Everything Else Will Come To You

Garth E. Beyer

The Five Stages Within The Diffusion Process

Garth Beyer

The Diffusion of Innovations, also called the Diffusion Theory, is a theory that strives on the interpretation of how people either adopt or reject new ideas, technology, products, or change in general.

There are five stages within the diffusion process:

  1. Awareness Stage: An individual becomes aware of the existence of an idea but lacks knowledge of what it does, or the benefits of it.
  2. Interest Stage: An individual has a desire to obtain more information on the idea: what is it, what does it do, how will it affect our culture, what are the possibilities of using it?
  3. Evaluation Stage: An individual mentally questions the selfishness that the idea can be used; how will it benefit me? The individual also begins to demonstrate interpersonal communication by requesting feedback on the idea from others.
  4. Trial Stage: If it benefits the individual, then the idea will be tried. It will be a personal experiment, a small sample to be tested in a way that concludes how the individual can benefit most from it.
  5. Adoption Stage: The individual begins to scale the idea and use it consistently. This adoption stage is largely based on continuous satisfaction of the idea.

A similar five stage process in the mental acceptance of an idea is Knowledge, Persuasion, Decision, Implementation, Confirmation encompassing similar definitions to those I have presented.

Pick & Choose

Garth Beyer

There may be a million reasons for them not to pick you…

but all you need to do is give them one good reason to choose you.

OR

You can put your mind at rest about what one good reason you can give

and just pick yourself.

 

After all, if you only need to give them one good reason, they don’t deserve you. You have over a million good reasons. Right?

 

Stay Positive & You Get To Pick The Reasons… And Yourself

Garth E. Beyer

More Than Just A Decision

More Than Just A Decision

Garth Beyer

Everyday the PR world is filled with decisions, to take on this client or not, to place the ad here or there, to focus more on social media outlets or word of mouth – the decisions are endless.

It’s almost as if you’re the CEO, but what sets you, as a PR Specialist, apart from the CEO is that it is your job to not only make a decision, but to justify it.

It’s no wonder that taking a debate class is so highly suggested for those looking to go into PR. However, debate merely teaches you how to fend for your position, your opinion on a matter. You can debate which decision is better, but that’s not your job.

Your focus is to fend of those who do not support the action you took from the decision you made. Justification in PR is about the action already taken, not the decision to take action.

By the way, there is no guide to it. Sorry.

Practice makes perfect.

Life Is Short

Garth Beyer

If time flies when you’re having fun and having fun is all you do, life is short.

If you’re a person that is having tragedies in your life and think life is short. You have another thing coming: one longgg life of living with those tragedies.

Which statement do you hear more people respond with “life is short”? I feel that I hear a lot more people say life is short in response to tragedies: A close friend dies from driving drunk, a grandparent falls and gets amnesia, you get heartbroken by the one you loved for years. Those are logical reasons to note that life is short.

Then you have those who use “life is short” as an excuse. An excuse to not do well in school, an excuse to be reckless, to risk their lives without realizing they are risking putting their tragedy on someone else’s mind, as explained in the paragraph above. Though they may not say it aloud, an underlying factor of why people do “stupid” things is that life is short.

And it is. It should be. Life NEEDS to be short. Scroll back up and read the first contention of this post.

There’s a variable that very few realize about time flying when you’re having fun. Think about this for a moment, remember a time that you said “time flies when you have fun” in response to an experience you had. In that experience, was time going fast? Or were you lost in it? It’s more than likely time didn’t even exist during that experience, in your mind, it was going to last forever. It’s not until the experience is over do you state that time flew.

Did it really though? Or is it just a perception. Yes this is getting deep, but bear with me, there’s a point.

You can have two people that live to be 78 years old. One lived every single day having as much positive fun as possible but ended the day with saying how short life is. The other lived every single day, averagely, blindly, safely, and at her deathbed, she had realized how short life is.

Did either have a short life? Yes and no. They both lived to by 78 years old which is a fair amount of years to live, not short at all. But only one person really lived those years. Only one person made the absolute most out of every day, that made time fly, and at the end of each day wished they had more time to continue doing the fun things they did, that thought life is short, when realistically it wasn’t shorter than anyone else’s.

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. You can live each day and think that 24 hours is really short or you can go through life and once on your deathbed, wish you would have lived every set of 24 hours more.

 

Stay Positive & A Short Life Lived Is Better Than A Short Life Lost

Garth E. Beyer