Aspects of

Communication

Next to the development of models of communication, aspects of the process have been studied. Communication may for instance be understood in terms of four layers: procedure (such as face-to-face conversation, gestures, telepathy, smoke signals, light signals, signal flags, Morse, telex, letter, telephone, fax, advertising, billboards, e-mail), content, relations and emotion.

Our present society has many relatively new forms of communication, becoming more and more common. The question is whether the new communication tools are just that (new) or do they result in different relationships? E-mail has breached hierarchical parts of the government and new forms of coordination have emerged.

Communication may also be divided into language, tone of voice and body language. The psychologist Albert Mehrabian demonstrated that (in specific circumstances) a face-to-face conversation consists of only 7% of the content of words, 38% of tone of voice (all sound with the exception of the words itself) and

55% of body language. Whether these percentages are exactly right, is not that important; the division is. Normally you are thinking of what you want to say, the content but that encompasses only 7% of the conversation. Of course, you try to pass on the message as good as possible, including the use of sound and body language. However, the use of the last two is rather subconscious. You are even unable to influence certain aspects of body language and the message of these aspects may even conflict with the conscious message. The division also clarifies why writing a text and getting the message across in that way is so difficult; you depend only on the 7%!

This is also true for the right interpretation of such messages. Some gestures are positive in one culture but offensive in another. Part of body language is biological and part of it is learned (cultural body language). Important is always to see body language in the context of the bigger communication picture in order to reach a proper understanding. The interpretation of