What are the key stages in the communication cycle?, What are the barriers to communication?

  • What are the key stages in the communication cycle?

The key stages in the communication cycle.  You will see here that the communication cycle involves to phases or stages.  There are also at least two major parties involved in the communication cycle:

  • The sender of the message.
  • The recipient of the message.
  1. The first phase of the communication cycle starts with a sender who conceives a message to communicate.
  2. Then he/she encodes the message into a suitable form.  This form could be written, oral, visual or a combination of these.
  3. Lastly, the sender selects the appropriate channel/method by which the message will be sent to the reader/recipient.  The message is then sent.
  4. The second phase of the communication cycle starts with the recipient decoding the message that he/she has received.  By decoding we mean absorbing the message, for example, if the message was encoded in written form then the recipient decodes the message by reading it; again, if the message was encoded in oral form then the recipient decodes the message by listening to it; again, if the message was encoded in visual form then the recipient decodes the message by seeing it.
  5. Then he/she interprets the message or makes out some sense of the message.
  6. Lastly the recipient gives feedback to the sender regarding the message.
  • What are the barriers to communication?

By barriers to communication we mean the obstacles or problems in the way to effective communication.  Among the barriers to communication are:

  • Non-verbal signals or body language by the sender or recipient of the message
  • Language, which may be ambiguous or too specialized
  • Distorted listening by the recipient of the message
  • Pre-judgments held by the sender or recipient of the message
  • Nature of relationship between the sender and recipient of the message
  • Messages that involve emotion either on the part of the sender or recipient
  • Lack of suitable systems to get the message across

Leave a Comment