Linear model of communication

Wilbur Schramm developed what is now accepted as the basic model of mass communications.

The components of the linear model of communication are:
Source: The individual or organisation sending the message.
Encoding: Transferring the intended message into a symbolic style that can be transmitted.
Signal: The transmission of the message using a particular media.
Decoding: Understanding the symbolic style of the message in order to understand the message.
Receiver: The individual of organisation receiving the message.
Feedback: The receiver's communication back to the source on receipt of the message
Noise: Distortion of the communication process, making it difficult for the receiver to interpret the message as intended by the source

This is a linear model which emphasieses the "transmission of information, ideas, attitudes, or emotion from one person or group to another, primarily through symbols" Theodorson and Theodorson 1969). The model itself is straightfoward, but its the quality of the linkages between the various elements in the process that determine weather it will be successful.

Reference. Fill Chris, Marketing Communications, contexts, contents and strategies, Prentice Hall, 1999, p24