Elements of Communication

Communication is a process made up of these elements:
Senders and Receivers
Messages
Channels
Feedback, and
Setting
In face-to-face conversations, participants are often senders of messages at the same time they are receivers of messages. The message is the substance the sender wants to share. Channels are the ways a message is delivered. Feedback is a receiver's response to a message. The setting is refers to the physical environment in which the communication takes place.

Lets take a look at these same elements as they relate to the Internet.

Participants on the Internet are also senders and receivers of messages. These messages might be in the form of a Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) page of information similar to the page you are viewing now. Participants can also use email, newsgroups, audio, and video to send and receive messages. You will find out more about these channels of delivery in additional modules.

Businesses use the Internet to communicate with web pages that are designed to introduce and inform customers about services, products, and information they have to offer. The setting for this communication can occur wherever the participant has Internet access.

The Internet

The Internet is a vast number of computers connected together. All of these computers have information on them which they share. Computers that share information are called hosts. It is estimated that more than 16 million host computers are currently sharing information on the Internet. This figure is expected to double within the next two years. More and more people around the world are communicating through the Internet. Although most of the communication is text based, video and audio communication systems have been developed to enhance the capability of the Internet.

For any computer to be able to share information with another computer, a communication standard must be shared. This means that the computers have to know how to ask for information or indicate that they sending information. The communication standard (or protocol) the Internet uses is called "Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and all computers on the Internet must use it. So TCP/IP explains how the information is transmitted over the Internet. However, the information itself is formatted as well. For example, a Microsoft Word document and a plain text document may contain the same information, but the format of the information is different.

This common standard for communication allows users of many computer platforms and operating systems to communicate effectively. The global impact of the Internet is staggering. Businesses can now sell goods and services throughout the world.