The two words information and communication are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.
— writer Sydney J. Harris
Anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt calls the drive to meet social needs "the human career." Success in so doing depends on interaction with others. Therefore, in effect, we could call communication the human career!
Just as breathing is essential to human existence, communication is necessary for meaningful life. Communication helps us to meet our needs and to achieve our desires. It plays a significant role in the development and maintenance of self-image. It facilitates relationships connecting us to others and to the society as a whole. It is the “glue” that holds relationships together. It facilitates task achievement and conflict resolution; but it is not a cure-all.
Researchers of speech, or oral, communication have defined it more than 125 different ways. A thumbnail sketch is that communication is the creation of shared meanings. The dictionary says to communicate is to share our ideas or to make them common. The element making communication its own academic field is messages.
Levels of communication range from intrapersonal (within one’s self) to interpersonal (literally “between persons”), small group (about 3-10 persons), organizational (a larger group), public (presentational), mass (a technology-delivered process from a few senders to many receivers), and societal (cross-cultural, whether official heads of state or simply individuals from different cultures).
Communication could be called a “practical man’s psychology.” That is because to be effective, it requires understanding others’ perspectives, at least to some degree.
Oral communication is not a linear process. Instead, it is simultaneous, on-going, and ever-changing. The sender of the message also is the receiver of the messages returned, even while the initial communication occurs.
Context is crucial in oral communication because the meaning, acceptance, and even the origination of communication depend on genders, cultures, relationships, and situations involved.
At best, “communication” is the name for those practices that compensate for the fact that we can never be each other. – writer John Durham Peter
How effective is your daily communication? Why? How can you improve it?