Main Points

The elements in the communication process are a source, encoding process, message, channel, decoding process, receiver, feedback, and noise.
The three types of noise are semantic, environmental, and mechanical.
The three main settings for communication are interpersonal, machine-assisted interpersonal, and mass communication.
Each element in the communication process may vary according to setting.
Mass communication refers to the process by which a complex organization, with the aid of one or more machines, produces public messages that are aimed at large, heterogeneous, and scattered audiences.
Traditionally, a mass communicator was defined by formal organization, gatekeepers, expensive operating costs, profit motive, and competitiveness. The Internet has created exceptions to these features.
New models have been developed to illustrate Internet mass communication.
Communication content has become more specialized in the past 40 years, but the channels of mass communication still have the potential to reach vast audiences.
Media have symbiotic relationships.
The Internet makes possible disintermediation, eliminating the intermediary, or middleman. This phenomenon has implications for many media.

2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
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