Communication is Complex. Definitions, Types and Problems

Communication is essentially a discipline concerned with the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another. Distilled to its bare essentials communication involves a sender transmitting an idea, information, or feeling to a receiver who is able to understand what has been communicated . Effective communication thus occurs only when the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intended to convey. Thus communication as a discipline seeks to understand the impact of messages on human behavior and in the contest of this paper emphasis is human behavior within an organizational setting . Communication as a discipline includes the study of communication in interpersonal relationships, groups and organizations. There is no denying that communication is a complex discipline as it involves the study of how a sender encodes information to be transmitted, how a receiver decodes received data, barriers to communication which are the influences in the environment that affect the whole process of how information is communicated. This paper seeks to examine the complex discipline of communication focusing on the communication cycle, nonverbal communication and the barriers that hinder effective communication within an organizational setting.