Microsoft Word Revised Syllabus Ver doc

 LESSON - IV 
CHARACTERISTICS OF SPOKEN MEDIA 
Communication, in its simplest sense, is a human relationship, involving two or more 
persons who come together to share, to dialogue and to commune, or just to be together say at 
a festival or a time of morning. Communication is thus not so much an act or even a process 
but rather social and cultural 'togetherness'. Communication with oneself, with God, nature, 
the world of spirits, and with one’s ancestors are also forms of communication.
'Communication' is perhaps one of the most hyped words in contemporary culture. It 
encompasses a multitude of experience, actions and events, as well as whole variety of 
happenings and meanings, and technologies too. Thus, a conference or a meeting or even a 
media or procession is a 'Communication event', newspapers, radio, video and television are 
'Communication media', phones, pagers and e-mail are 'Communication technologies and 
journalists, advertisers, public relations, personnel and even camera crew and news readers 
are communication professionals'.
The English word 'Communication' is derived from the Latin noun 'Communis' and 
the Latin Verb 'Communicare' which means 'to make common'. Terms closely related to 
communication and with similar etymological origins include community, communion, 
commonality, communalism and communism.
According to Ashley Montagu and Floyed Matson (1979) 'Communication is the 
same we give to the countless ways that human have if keeping in touch-not just words and 
music, pictures and print, nods and beaks, postures and plumages; to every more that catches 
some one's eye and every sound that resonates upon another's ear'.
In this sense, also for animals, birds and bees, and other hand, sea and air creatures 
too. The singing and chirping of birds, the croaking of frogs, and the many visual and 
olfactory signals among bird and beast are forms of communication; some simple, others very 
highly sophisticated. The dance of the honeybee, for instance, is an advanced means of 
communication for it conveys to other bees the precise direction and distance of the place 
where nectar will be formed.