Question

First, describe the elements of the communication process. Next, imagine that you are the CEO of a cosmetics company. Your company is headquartered in Chicago, where you have more than 3,000 employees. You are planning to give a talk to all the employees, a "state of the company" address that reviews the company's performance, victories, and challenges over the past 12 months. Because you want every employee to be able to listen to your address, you decide to do it as a webcast that employees can watch on their computers in real time. Explain how your webcast includes each element of the communication process.

Answer 1

The elements of communication are as follow :

1. Source
2. Message
3. Encoding
4. Channel
5. Decoding
6. Receiver
7. Feedback
8. Noise

• Source: Source can be referred to the individual or thing providing the information. It is also termed it as Sender. Sender is the person who will be sending the information.
• Message: Message refers to the information, ideas, commands or suggestions which is from the source or the sender which is intended to be shared or communicated with the receiver.
• Encoding: Encoding refers to arrangement of the message into a design in which receiver understands the objective of the information which is communicated. It would include symbols, words, pictures and gestures.
• Channel: Channel is the medium in which the encoded information is being transferred to the receiver from the sender. Channel can be verbal or non-verbal, personal or non-personal.
• Decoding: Decoding is the process of converting the encoded information which is sent by the sender so the receiver understands in the way the sender intended.
• Receiver: Receiver is the individual or thing which gets the information which is sent by the Sender or Source.
• Feedback: Feedback consist of the actions which the receiver provides to the sender to indicate that the information passed is understood.
• Noise: Noise refers to the barriers in communication or it is the obstructions that resulted in poor communication, misunderstanding, unclear and missing information.

In the provided scenario, the CEO is the Source or Sender  since he is the one who wants to convey the information to the employees. The Message in this scenario is the company's review on performances victory and challenges over 12 months. Encoding of the information is done through the computers as electronic signals of the information provided by the CEO.

The Channel used in this scenario for communication will be Internet, Internet is the best medium in this scenario because it can be accessed by large audience. Decoding of the information will be converting the electrical signals into Audio & Video so that the audience understands it. The Receiver in this scenarios are the 3000+ employees whom the CEO is addressing.

Feedback will be the response which the employees gives to the CEO regarding the information which is conveyed. The Noise in this scenario can be poor internet connection, poor audio quality, poor video quality, background noises etc.