Page 112 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

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Human perception is not a simple reception of stimuli but is a process of
interaction or negotiation. What happens is that we try to match the external
stimuli with internal patterns of thoughts or concepts when this match has
been made, we have perceived something, and we have given it meaning. So
meaning in this sense derives from matching the external stimuli with inter-
nal concepts. Consider what happens when we fail to hear a word clearly,
cannot decipher someone’s handwriting, or try out puzzles of photographs
of familiar objects taken from unfamiliar angles in unfamiliar close ups.
Once the matching or recognition has occurred, the photograph is easily
perceived for what it is. Until this moment we are in a stage of frustration, for
although we can see the tones and shapes of the photograph we cannot say
we perceive it yet for perception always involves the drive to understand and
organize. Failing to see meaning in what we perceive puts us into a state of
disorientation. This matching is controlled by our culture, internal concepts,
or patterns of thought.
We now move into the second stage of vertical dimension. This is when
the percept E is converted into signals about E or to use Gerbner’s code SE.
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This is what we generally call a message or a signal or statement about the
event. The circle representing the message in divided into two: S refers to it
as a signal, the form that it takes and E refers to its content. It is clear that
a given content or E can be communicated in a number of different ways—
there are a number of potential Ss to choose from. Finding the best S for a
given E is one of the crucial concerns of the communicators. It is important
to remember that SE is a unified concept, not two separate areas brought
together in that a chosen S will obviously affect the representation of E.
The relationship between form and content is dynamic and interactive.
In this vertical dimension selection is as important as in the horizontal. First
there is the selection of means the medium and channel of communication.
Then there is the selection from within the percept E . Just as E cannot be
1
1
a complete and comprehensive response to E so too a signal about E can
1
never in its turn attain completeness and comprehensiveness. Selection and
distortion must occur.

Westley and Maclean’s Model (1957)

Bruce Westley and Malcolm S. MacLean (Jr) (1957) make two distinctions
between face-to-face communication and mass communication. Face-to-face
communication involves more sense modalities than mass communication.
Visual cues, paralinguistic cues, olfactory cues, and kinesic cues are available to
the participants in face-to-face communication but not available in mass com-
munication. In face-to-face communication participants have access to imme-
diate feedback from the receiver whereas in mass communication the feedback
is delayed. The rationale Westley and MacLean provide for constructing this

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