Schramm's model of communication

Schramm's model of communication is an early and influential model of communication. It was first published by Wilbur Schramm in 1954 and includes innovations over previous models, such as the inclusion of a feedback loop and the discussion of the role of fields of experience. For Schramm, communication is about sharing information or having a common attitude towards signs. His model is based on three basic components: a source, a destination, and a message. The process starts with an idea in the mind of the source. This idea is then encoded into a message using signs and sent to the destination. The destination needs to decode and interpret the signs to reconstruct the original idea. In response, they formulate their own message, encode it, and send it back as a form of feedback. Feedback is a key part of many forms of communication. It can be used to mitigate processes that may undermine successful communication, such as external noise or errors in the phases of encoding and decoding. The success of communication also depends on the fields of experience of the participants. A field of experience includes past life experiences as well as attitudes and beliefs. It affects how the processes of encoding, decoding, and interpretation take place. For successful communication, the message has to be located in the overlap of the fields of experience of both participants. If the message is outside the receiver's field of experience, they are unable to connect it to the original idea. This is often the case when there are big cultural differences. Schramm holds that the sender usually has some goal they wish to achieve through communication. He discusses the conditions that are needed to have this effect on the audience, such as gaining their attention and motivating them to act towards this goal. He also applies his model to mass communication. One difference from other forms of communication is that successful mass communication is more difficult since there is very little feedback. In the 1970s, Schramm proposed many revisions to his earlier model. They focus on additional factors that make communication more complex. An example is the relation between sender and receiver: it influences the goal of communication and the roles played by the participants. Schramm's criticism of linear models of communication, which lack a feedback loop, has been very influential. One shortcoming of Schramm's model is that it assumes that the communicators take turns in exchanging information instead of sending messages simultaneously. Another objection is that Schramm conceives information and its meaning as preexisting entities rather than seeing communication as a process that creates meaning.

Background Schramm's model of communication was published by Wilbur Schramm in 1954. It is one of the earliest interaction models of communication. It was conceived as a response to and an improvement over earlier attempts in the form of linear transmission models, like the Shannon–Weaver model and Lasswell's model. Models of communication are simplified presentations of the process of communication and try to explain it by discussing its main components and their relations. For Schramm, a central aspect of communication is that the participants "are trying to establish a 'commonness'" by sharing an idea or information. In this regard, communication can be defined as "the sharing of an orientation toward a set of informational signs" and is based on a relation between the communicators. So when a person calls the fire department to report a fire in their home, this is an attempt to share information about the fire. This sharing happens through messages. For Schramm, messages are made up of signs. Each sign corresponds to some element in experience, like the sign "dog" which "stands for our generalized experience of dogs". This sign is meaningless for someone who has never experienced dogs before or who does not associate the sign with their experiences of dogs. The theories of psychologist Charles Osgood were a significant influence and inspired Schramm to formulate his model. According to Osgood, meaning is located not just in the message but also in the social context. His psycholinguistic approach focuses on how external stimuli elicit internal responses in the form of interpretations. These responses mediate between the stimulus and its meaning. Osgood's ideas influenced Schramm in two important ways: (1) he posited a field of shared experience acting as the background of communication and (2) he added the stages of encoding and decoding as internal responses to the process. Because of these influences, some theorists refer to Schramm's model as the "Osgood–Schramm model". Most theorists identify Schramm's model with his 1954 book The process and effects of mass communication and present it as a reaction to earlier models developed in the late 1940s. However, marketing scholar Jim Blythe argues that Schramm's model is of earlier origin and was already present in Schramm's 1949 book Mass Communication.

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