What exactly is communication?
The most simple definition: Communication is each act of transmitting information.
Information in the broadest sense of the word: including thoughts, ideas and emotions.
Giving someone a bouquet of flowers is communicating a certain message.
Adding to that gift a verbal compliment,
"You're pretty" is another seperate act of communication.
Blushing 'because you've just received flowers and a compliment
is again another form of communication.
As social animals we communicate day in day out...
with spoken words, non-verbal gestures, signs and symbols.
Sometimes we use media to communicate a message.
Media are the channels that we use to communicate.
Scholars don’t really agree on the definition of the word media.
Television, internet, radio, mobile phones, the soapbox we stand on to give a speech,
they are all technical media in a way. Things we constructed to amplify our communication.
In the more broader definition, we can include our hands, voice and eyes,
that we all use to communicate somehow, in the list of communication channels, of media.
In general however, whenever we discuss mediated communication
or the mass media, we only mean the first category.
Over the years scientists from different scientific disciplines have studied these channels
of communication and all these different forms that communication can take.
The results of their studies have formed the basis of the relatively new
'science of communication'.
Even today, many scholars in other disciplines
study the exact same communication phenomena as we do.
We share theories, models and often use the same methods to analyse & describe our field.
It is therefore useful to be aware of how these other disciplines are connected with ours.
To get an idea of the different levels of communication
and how they are connected to other scienctific disciplines,
we can look at the so-called pyramid of communication.
On the highest level of this pyramid we find societal communication,
which is by its very nature aimed at a large mass audience.
Therefore mainly historians, political scientists and sociologists studied this perspective.
Under that is the level of institutional communication,
that is performed by political parties, organized religions, large corporations and such.
Then comes the level of group communication.
Groups are audiences that feel a high level of group identification,
for instance a family or a fanclub.
Both institutional and group communication are in the field of sociology and cultural antropology.
We have now arrived to the level of interpersonal communication,
basically the communication between two or more people.
Both sociologists and psychologists study this field.
Finally there is the level of intrapersonal communication.
This would be the communication you have with yourself.
With this we mean all information processing, thinking, internalizing information
and the process of giving meaning to the world around us.
And of course this approach leans heavily on the discipline of psychology.