The Shannon & Weaver Model

While this model seems to be acclaimed as renowned model for communication research, it seems to have outdated itself and is in need of a renovation. While in the digital environment some of these elements are viable such as transmission and reception, there are other elements that have aged a bit. One of the issues i see with the model is the idea of one fixed sender and one intended receiver. On a platform such as the world wide web, the idea of a receiver needs to be adjusted in order to compensate for the ability for multiple and possibly unintended demographics to view the message. The idea of the sender has also drastically with the internet and the popularization of new forms of communication.

Take even this blog we are posting on for example, Which one of us is the sender and which the receiver? In an environment where multiple users are posting, referencing each other, commenting on responses, redirecting people; The Shannon & Weaver model begins to lose its structure and becomes less applicable to an online environment.

The idea of noise also needs to be interpreted differently in this digital environment. Noise was originally a term applied to telecommunications and on the internet i feel it has different implications. Noise can be several different interferences, such as a low bandwidth not allowing a user to fully experience rich media, or cross browser issues where information is not displayed properly (cough..internet explorer...).

In my opinion, this model is a decent structure to gain an idea of information communication and a way for us to understand some of the steps that go into sending a message. I do feel however that it has been outdated and with new and different ways in which we have developed to communicate in an online environment.