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WorldCom, a large communications company
www.worldcom.com/global/resources/glossary/?attribute=term&typeOfSearch=
2&searchterm=communications
Defines communication as “The transmission or reception of information, signals,
or messages.
Merriam-Webster’s, online dictionary
www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
A process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a com-
mon system of symbols, signs, or behavior.
St. John’s Episcopal Church
www.stjohnsdetroit.org/html-stj/06152000newsletter.html
Offers that it is “The act of imparting or transmitting ideas, information, etc.
Professor Robert J. Schihl
www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/phd/com707/def_com.html
Communication is a process in which a person, through the use of signs (natural,
universal)/symbols (by human convention), verbally and/or non verbally, con-
sciously or not consciously but intentionally, conveys meaning to another in order
to affect change.
Ted Slater
www.ijot.com/ted/papers/communication.html
Has this to say: “‘Communication,’which is etymologically related to both ‘com-
munion’ and ‘community,’ comes from the Latin communicare, which means, ‘to
make common’(Weekley, 1967, p. 338), or ‘to share.’DeVito (1986) expanded on
this, writing that communication is ‘[t]he process or act of transmitting a message
from a sender to a receiver, through a channel and with the interference of noise’
(p. 61). Some would elaborate on this definition, saying that the message trans-
mission is intentional and conveys meaning in order to bring about change.”
Okay, we can stop right here. Honest, these last two sites turned up in my random
search. I’m going with Ted Slater, who probably spent some valuable hours with Pro-
fessor Schihl. So today, kudos go to Regent University for not only stating a very clean
definition of communication, but for broadcasting it to the world in a successful manner.
Readers wanting an alternate interpretation of Ted’s web page are urged, again, to
read R.D. Laing’s book The Politics of Experience. Is it odd that it should take psy-
chologists and professors at denominational universities to set the record straight?
So now I stand here with one chance to define what communication is. Here we go:

Communication is the process of sending information from source to destination.