(Previous Lecture on Last Thursday 13th October 2011)
Once Ivan started this topic, I found it really hard to understand but once he explained it, I roughly had a good idea of what this topic is all about.
Once Ivan started this topic, I found it really hard to understand but once he explained it, I roughly had a good idea of what this topic is all about.
I’m going to start off this part with the notes I wrote
(copied some definitions from the slides) during the lecture, just bear with me
because I’m slightly struggling to understand my own notes! J
Definitions from the slides
Noise – anything added to a signal between transmission and
reception. In other words, any disruption or distortion or ‘blanking’ of that
signal, e.g. crackles on a phone line, snowstorm on a screen, excess of
information, background chatter, physical discomfort, wandering thoughts…
Redundancy (redundant information) – predictable/
conventional information - not ‘useless’ – it’s very useful, because it
establishes common ground and facilitates communication, e.g. a greeting such
as a wave, a handshake or the word ‘Hello’ communicate nothing new, they are
entirely predictable, but they open the way to further communication.
Entropy (entropic information) – unpredictable/
unconventional information - also useful because this is where the new
information is conveyed, e.g. ‘I’ve just run over your dog.’ This information
is unexpected and therefore entropic.
He explained the process model of communication, which were
established by Shannon and Weaver during the World War Two, they both were mathematicians
who wanted to expand the abilities of the communications and their work are
used in our society. Which is pretty cool. Like Einstein with his inventions
that we still use now, i.e Light.
Anyway back to the point, COMMUNICATIONS…
Basic Parts of the process model of communication,
Transmitter and Receiver, and something that passes between both of them.
Between them, it would be “information” passing through, but then again,
defining “information” are overrated. So it could be anything passing between
them. It could be a text message, it could be a phone call, a Morse code, it
could be body language, facial expressions, sign language, it could be
anything, as long it’s something we can give, to recognise and response. Once
the Transmitter sent an “information” to receiver, then a receiver would
“feedback” right back to the receiver, in order to show any understanding, (any
type of a hint more like) that they got the message or not. Which now bring us
to “noise”, a noise can disrupt something in between of Transmitter and
Receiver that would affect the “information” to be sent and received. Now,
“noise” can be either physical or personal, i.e. culture: I’m referring
‘physical” to something such as signal, wiring faulties, connection problems
etc; and “personal” meaning human connections, anyone can interfere with “information”
passing through, for instance, manipulating the information or divert the
information which would result “communication breakdown”.
I've just thought of old example in ancient history, well not that ancient, but in old times, they used to have old telephone method, which were cans and strings, if the strings weren't straight, (meaning noise) would interfere with the spoken message that was passing through the can to the strings, resulting a failure of decoding from the receiver.
Other example to apply this to a real life situation, I’m a Deaf person, I can lip-read and speak (sometimes it can be difficult to speak especially if I’m really nervous) I’m also a strong BSL (British Sign Language) user. As a deaf person, if one would communicate with a hearing person, it would be difficult as both sides would face invisible barriers (could be referred as “noise”) if a hearing person struggles to understand my spoken language, and have no knowledge of BSL, we would have a communication breakdown. For example, if I say something to receiver, and the noise (invisible barriers) would stop the receiver from receiving my “information”. And wont be able to feedback to me. I find it bit hard to explain this as I’m trying to put down my personal experience to explain this process of communication.
