Communication and its kinds

Communication comes from the Latin communis, meaning 'common'. It is the sharing of ideas, feelings and information so that the sender and the receiver reach a common understanding. It runs through everything we do at home, in school and in the community, from asking for help with homework to a village meeting about a new well.

By interaction:

• One-way communication: the message flows only from sender to receiver, with no immediate feedback: a lecture, a radio programme, a news bulletin, a website.
• Two-way communication: both sides take part and respond: a phone call, a chat with a friend, a parent-teacher meeting. Even a baby's cry, answered by a parent picking it up, is two-way.

By level:

• Intra-personal: communication with oneself: thinking through a problem, talking yourself into staying calm before a match, writing a diary.
• Inter-personal: between two people, usually face to face. It is the most effective, because of closeness and instant feedback: you can see whether the other person understood and explain again.
• Group: among members of a group with a common purpose, such as a class project team or a self-help group.
• Mass: to large, varied and anonymous audiences through radio, TV, newspapers and the internet. Feedback is slow and indirect.
• Intra-organisational (within an organisation, such as a notice from the principal to all classes) and inter-organisational (between organisations, such as a school writing to a hospital).

By mode:

• Verbal: using words, spoken or sung, including tone of voice.
• Non-verbal: without words: gestures (a thumbs-up), facial expressions, posture, eye contact, touch (a pat on the back), clothing, symbols (a red traffic light) and sign language. Nodding to show agreement is non-verbal.

By the senses used:

• Audio: only hearing: radio, a phone call.
• Visual: only sight: charts, posters, photographs, printed matter.
• Audio-visual: both: TV, films, videos, the internet.
• Involving more senses usually makes a message clearer and helps people remember it longer. A cookery demonstration on video teaches better than a recipe read aloud on radio.