Practices of decoding and interpretation are culturally enacted, not just by individuals ( genre conventions, for instance, trigger anticipatory expectations for how a message is to be received), and receivers of any message operationalize their own frames of reference in interpretation. For example, communicative actions can commence before a communicator formulates a conscious attempt to do so, as in the case of phatics likewise, communicators modify their intentions and formulations of a message in response to real-time feedback (e.g., a change in facial expression). These elements are now understood to be substantially overlapping and recursive activities rather than steps in a sequence. Interpretation and making sense of the presumed original message.Decoding of the reassembled encoded message.Reception of signals and reassembling of the encoded message from a sequence of received signals.Noise sources such as natural forces and in some cases human activity (both intentional and accidental) begin influencing the quality of signals propagating from the sender to one or more receivers.Transmission of the encoded message as a sequence of signals using a specific channel or medium.Message encoding (for example, into digital data, written text, speech, pictures, gestures and so on).Message composition (further internal or technical elaboration on what exactly to express).The formation of communicative motivation or reason.Accordingly, they conceptualized communication as involving discrete steps:

In Claude Shannon's and Warren Weaver's influential model, human communication was imagined to function like a telephone or telegraph. One possible definition of communication is the act of developing meaning among entities or groups through the use of sufficiently mutually understood signs, symbols, and semiotic conventions.

John Peters argues the difficulty of defining communication emerges from the fact that communication is both a universal phenomena (because everyone communicates) and a specific discipline of institutional academic study. Communication (from Latin communicare, meaning 'to share' or 'to be in relation with') is 'an apparent answer to the painful divisions between self and other, private and public, and inner thought and outer world.' As this definition indicates, communication is difficult to define in a consistent manner, because it is commonly used to refer to a wide range of different behaviors (broadly: 'the transfer of information' ), or to limit what can be included in the category of communication (for example, requiring a 'conscious intent' to persuade ).

Communicate what you mean answer key