Introduction
What is effective Communication?
Effective communication is a two-way process - sending the right message that is also being correctly received and understood by the other person/s (recipient). Communication is a process of decoding and encoding meaningful messages. For effective communication to take place/occur, a more conducive atmosphere is of paramount importance, as this will play a major role in messages being encoded and decoded without being distorted or its original meaning being lost.
For communication to be effective, it is important to understand how the people you are interacting with may interpret your message. We obtain information through our senses, and it is therefore recommended that your communication includes aspects of the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic language to appeal to all listeners. However having hinted the above, there are a number of communication barriers that may play a major role in distorting meaningful messages or communication in the corporate working environment. These barriers may vary from, psychological disturbances, noise and other forms of discomfort. The following are a list of communication barriers that often than not are a cause for concern when communicating.
Communication Barriers
There are many barriers in communication.
Language can be a barrier. If the receiver does not understand the language of the sender, it is a barrier.
In electronic communications, such as radio or television, static or a weak signal can be a barrier. A bad receiver antenna can be a barrier as well.
Emotions can cause people to not be receptive to the words of another person, even if the words are understood. That is a barrier.
In short, anything that interferes with a signal sent to a receiver is a barrier to communication.
1. Language as a Communication Barrier
Typically, little communication occurs unless one or both parties learn a new language, which requires an investment of time and effort. People traveling abroad often encounter a language barrier.
People who come to a new country at an adult age, when language learning is a cumbersome process, can have particular difficulty "overcoming the language barrier". Similar difficulties occur at multinational meetings, where translation services can be costly, hard to obtain, and prone to error.
2. Physical Communication Barrier
Communication does not consist of words alone. Another set of barriers is caused by your own physical form, your viewers, or the background of the documents or by the appearance. Your ideas, however good and however competently pass on, are at the compassion of various probably physical barriers.
For writing, there is a whole barrage of possible physical blocks. No matter how well you write it, for example, a document may be unreadable for various reasons: stuck or rough margins, fingerprints or smudges, a faulty typewriter ribbon, unclear photocopies, unreadable word-processor printout, water or coffee spots, or messy alteration. Another set of physical barriers might be caused by paper itself: a poor quality of stationery, for example unsuitable use of cheep of stationery when a lustrous printed brochure might be needed to mean reputation, or inappropriate use of lustrous brochure when a simple photocopy might be needed to entail rapidity.
The above mentions are a summary of communication barriers. The main greatest communication barriers are as follows,
Noise
Distortion
Gender difference
Non-verbal communication
Problems in the message
Lack of communication skills
Information overload
Noise refers to the interference or distraction that is in the environment in which the communication is taking place.
Distortion refers to the loss of meaning of the message in handling. This largely occurs in the encoding and decoding stages of communication.
Gender differences are a common barrier of communication. Men and women communicate for different reasons with different styles.
Non-verbal communication is a very important barrier as oral communication is always accompanied by non-verbal cues that have a great tendency of encumbering the right message.
As for problems in the message, the message could be incorrect, irrelevant, unsuitable, incomplete or difficult to understand or decipher.
Also the encoder or decoder may lack communication skills, which becomes a barrier of communication.
Lots of information that is also termed as information overload can also be a big hindrance in effective communication.
Communication involves many considerations. Before it is being carried, it is essential that the manager responsible for executing the message gets fully prepared about how, when and by what means to execute
Conclusion
Communication skill.
2. Knowledge of audience.
3. Attitude.
4. Social cultural context of receiver.
5. Selection of communication channel.
6. Receiver oriented message.
If we don't have proper communication skill, it is the biggest barrier in communication.
Then comes the knowledge of audience, while communicating we should have full awareness of knowledge of our audience, we should know how much our audience know about the message we want to convey. If we keep on conveying our message without knowing the knowledge or awareness of audience chances are there they will not understand the proper meaning of it.
We should have full awareness of attitude of out targeted audience, about the message we are conveying, how they are reacting towards it, and communicator should also have a good attitude while dealing with audience.
Social cultural context of the targeted audience is a very important thing. If we are communicating something in a manner which is against their society or culture then audience will show a severe reaction towards our message. No society accepts anything which is against their culture or religion.
While keeping in mind our targeted audience we should select a proper communication channel, if our audience is educated and working and have limited time and we are conveying our message for them on T.V then there are vital chances, that message is not conveyed. News paper would be the best channel. Just like that youngsters watch T.V more then they read news paper. Radio will be the best channel for the people who don't have access to T.V, i.e farmers etc.
Message should be receiver oriented should have easy language, should be short which convey the full meaning and understandable.
If any of these things neglected, it will be the barrier in communication
Reference:
Sheila Steinberg: An Introduction to Mass Communication
Shiela Steinberg: The red handbook: Effective Communication.
Prof J Fourier: Media Studies Vol 2.
The End
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1 comment:
thats gr8 staff!
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