Seven Wonders of Communication, 2010 Edition

Seven Wonders of Communication, 2010 Edition
Author: Donald Cleveland.
Twenty-First Century Books

What Is Communication?
Communication is the process by which most living things exchange
information. In the 1940s, a mathematician named Claude E. Shannon gave us
a picture of what communication is. His model became known as Shannon’s
Model of Communication.
The communication source is where the information comes from. The
information is then encoded. When someone talks or writes, that
person’s thoughts are “encoded” into language. The message
then goes through a channel. In this case, the channel
is air. At the receiving end, the message is decoded.
If someone is talking or writing it, that person’s brain
decodes the language in order to understand it. The
destination is the person receiving the message. Noise is
anything that interferes with the communication process.
Noise could be poor handwriting.
As we move through the following chapters on
the Seven Wonders of Communication,
keep Shannon’s idea in mind. This is what
communication is all about.