Process of Verbal Communication (SMCR Model)

The process of communication can be represented by the following graphic:

Sender

The sender (or source in the SMCR model) is the transmitter of the message. There are five factors which influence the sender in any communication he transmits:

Communication skills influence the effectiveness of your communication; therefore, a good understanding of verbal and non-verbal communication is the key.

Attitude can be defined as a generalized tendency to feel one way or another about something. Attitudes influence our communication in three ways.

• Attitudes toward ourselves determine how we conduct ourselves when we transmit messages to others. If we have a favourable self-attitude, the receivers will note our self-confidence. If we have an unfavourable self-attitude, the receivers will note our uneasiness.
• Attitude toward subject matter affects our communication by predetermining the way we work our messages about certain subjects. Example: a salesperson with a favourable attitude towards a product she is selling is likely to talk about only the positive attributes of the product.
• Attitude toward the receiver or the receiver's attitude toward the sender. Our messages are likely to be quite different when communicating the same content to someone we like and then to someone we dislike. We also structure our messages differently when talking to someone in a higher position than ours, in the same position, or in a lower position, regardless of whether we like them or not.

Knowledge level has a bearing on our ability to communicate effectively about a subject. A businessperson might feel ill at ease trying to talk with a farmer about cattle, mealies, or fruit. The farmer would not feel qualified to talk about inner city housing, traffic congestion problems, or city community policing. However, they may both feel quite comfortable discussing politics.

The position of the sender and the receiver in their respective social systems also affects the nature of the communicative act. Each one of us occupy a position in one or more social systems, such as our family, work groups, church, community, or the organisations to which we belong. We perceive those with whom we communicate as occupying a similar, higher, or lower position in their respective social systems.

Our culture also influences our communication effectiveness. Communication is more effective between persons with similar cultural backgrounds. Culture is independent of social position in many cases.

Message

The message is what the sender tries to transmit to his specified receivers. Every message has at least two major aspects: content and treatment.

The content of the message includes the assertions, arguments, appeals, and themes which the sender transmits to the receivers. The treatment of the message is the arrangement or ordering of the content by the sender. The selection of content and the treatment of the message depend upon our communication skills, attitudes, knowledge level, our position in social systems and our culture. The selection of content and the treatment of the message we use also depends upon our audience and their communication skills, knowledge, attitudes, social position, and culture. A doctor, for example, would select different content and treat the message differently when talking about the same subject to two different audiences, i.e. his fellow doctors and a group of community leaders.

Receiver

It is the individual or group that receives the message from the sender. The receiver must take the content and add meaning to it. (See previous paragraph.)