A new communication process model

What is it about?

It describes the different stages of communication starting from the sender's intention to create an utterance and ending with the receiver's understanding of it. Communication is treated as gift-exchange: the sender has a gift, the purport of the message, that is wrapped into a gift package, the message itself, in two different ways: first by using protective paper and then by using decorative paper. The gift package is unwrapped by the receiver in the opposite order. Communication is multi-modal: the sender's gift is a certain kind of situation in the real world or in an imagined world (called model) which is given to the the receiver in the shape of a gift package whcih consists of the sender's experience of the situation (called symptom) and information to the receiver (called signal).

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Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The paper is important because it demonstrates why and how communication succeeds. The model directly shows that the sender and the receiver actually meet one another. This is opposed to Shannon's communication process model that focusses on the potential of failure. Winner of the Mouton d'Or Award (2018)