| Communication Theory | Claude Shannon (Bell labs) and Warren Weaver developed a theory of communication in 1948. Shannon's original theory (also known as "information theory") was later elaborated and given a more popular, non-mathematical formulation by Warren Weaver, a media specialist with the Rockefeller Foundation. In effect, Weaver extended Shannon's insights about electronic signal transmission and the quantitative measurement of information flows into a broad theoretical model of human communication, which he defined as "all of the ways by which one mind may affect another." |
| Feedback | Information about a message that a receiver sends back to the sender; the receiver's reaction or response to a communication. |
| Interpretation | all operations that a receiver performs in order to decode and understand a message. |
| Medium |
the method used to transmit a message (e.g., print, speech, telephone, smoke signals, etc.). |
| Meme | viral encapsulated idea, with built-in feedback loop. |
| Message | the actual information or signal sent from a sender to a receiver. The "content" of a communication. |
| Noise | technical or semantic obstacles; that is, anything that interferes with the clear transmission of a message (e.g., low visibility, poor ink quality, static electricity). |
| Prosumer | a consumer with professional-level tools. |
| Receiver | the audience for a message. Also known as the addressee. |
| Signal |
an information source; a person or device that originates a message. |
| Viral | spread by non-standard comunication. |