Models of Communication
Although adapted and updated, much of the information in this lecture is derived from C. David Mortensen, Communication: The Study of Human Communication (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1972), Chapter 2, “Communication Models.”
A. What is a Model?
1. Mortensen: “In the broadest sense, a model is a systematic representation of an object or event in idealized and abstract form. Models are somewhat arbitrary by their nature. The act of abstracting eliminates certain details to focus on essential factors. . . . The key to the usefulness of a model is the degree to which it conforms--in point-by-point correspondence--to the underlying determinants of communicative behavior.”
2. “Communication models are merely pictures; they’re even distorting pictures, because they stop or freeze an essentially dynamic interactive or transactive process into a static picture.”
3. Models are metaphors. They allow us to see one thing in terms of another.
B. The Advantages of Models
1. They should allow us to ask questions.
Mortensen: “A good model is useful, then, in providing both general perspective and particular vantage points from which to ask questions and to interpret the raw stuff of observation. The more complex the subject matter—the more amorphous and elusive the natural boundaries—the greater are the potential rewards of model building.”
2. They should clarify complexity.
Models also clarify the structure of complex events. They do this, as Chapanis (1961) noted, by reducing complexity to simpler, more familiar terms. . . Thus, the aim of a model is not to ignore complexity or to explain it away, but rather to give it order and coherence.
3. They should lead us to new discoveries-most important, according to Mortensen.
At another level models have heuristic value; that is, they provide new ways to conceive of hypothetical ideas and relationships. This may well be their most important function. With the aid of a good model, suddenly
A. What is a Model?
1. Mortensen: “In the broadest sense, a model is a systematic representation of an object or event in idealized and abstract form. Models are somewhat arbitrary by their nature. The act of abstracting eliminates certain details to focus on essential factors. . . . The key to the usefulness of a model is the degree to which it conforms--in point-by-point correspondence--to the underlying determinants of communicative behavior.”
2. “Communication models are merely pictures; they’re even distorting pictures, because they stop or freeze an essentially dynamic interactive or transactive process into a static picture.”
3. Models are metaphors. They allow us to see one thing in terms of another.
B. The Advantages of Models
1. They should allow us to ask questions.
Mortensen: “A good model is useful, then, in providing both general perspective and particular vantage points from which to ask questions and to interpret the raw stuff of observation. The more complex the subject matter—the more amorphous and elusive the natural boundaries—the greater are the potential rewards of model building.”
2. They should clarify complexity.
Models also clarify the structure of complex events. They do this, as Chapanis (1961) noted, by reducing complexity to simpler, more familiar terms. . . Thus, the aim of a model is not to ignore complexity or to explain it away, but rather to give it order and coherence.
3. They should lead us to new discoveries-most important, according to Mortensen.
At another level models have heuristic value; that is, they provide new ways to conceive of hypothetical ideas and relationships. This may well be their most important function. With the aid of a good model, suddenly