The False Model: Sender-Message-Receiver and its Origin in Engineering

Breakdown of the Traditional Model and its Apparent Logic

The most widespread and taught communication model is, paradoxically, one of its greatest myths.

We refer to the traditional sender-message-receiver scheme.

Its structure is seductively simple: a sender encodes and sends a message to a receiver, who decodes it.

In some versions, a return arrow is added to represent "feedback".

The apparent logic and simplicity of this diagram is the reason it has endured; it seems an orderly and efficient way to explain a process we perform every day.

However, this simplicity is precisely its greatest weakness, as it presents the complex act of human interaction as a mere transfer of data packets, a view that is radically removed from reality.

The real origin: a mathematical model for telephony, not for humans

The reason this model is a fallacy for human communication is that it was never designed for it.

Its origin is not in psychology or sociology, but in engineering and mathematics.

It was developed by engineers Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver for the Bell Telephone Company.

Its purpose was to explain and optimize the technical operation of a telephone call; it is a computer model designed for machine-to-machine communication, such as Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

It describes precisely how a device (sender) sends coded data through a channel to another device (receiver).

It is a pillar of Information Theory, but applying it to human interaction is a serious conceptual error.

Why we fail to apply it: humans are not predictable machines.

The computational model works perfectly for technology because machines operate under instructions and lack subjectivity.

For example, a computer (sender) sends the information of a presentation (message) to a projector (receiver).

If everything works, the projector decodes the data and displays the image. This is a linear, one-sided process.

The projector cannot wake up in a bad mood, nor can the computer not like the projector and decide not to work.

Humans, on the other hand, are the opposite of predictable machines.

Our conversations are deeply influenced by moods, past experiences, hidden intentions, insecurities and a host of variables that this model is incapable of contemplating.

To reduce our complex interaction to a simple technical scheme is to ignore the very essence of what makes us human.

Limitations of the model: "noise", the absence of emotional context

Even the concepts that the model attempts to adapt, such as "noise" and "feedback," demonstrate its inadequacy.

In the computer model, "noise" is technical interference, such as a false contact in a cable that interrupts the signal.

In human communication, "noise" is prejudice, sarcasm, emotional state or cultural differences.

For its part, "feedback" in this scheme is a simple technical confirmation: the image was projected correctly on the screen.

For humans, feedback is a complex mixture of verbal, body and emotional language.

The major limitation of the sender-message-receiver model is, therefore, its absolute blindness to the emotional and situational context, which is not an accessory, but the core of all meaningful human communication.

Summary

The traditional sender-message-receiver model is seductively simple but flawed. It presents complex human interaction as a mere transfer of data packets, a view that is radically divorced from reality and is its greatest weakness.

This model was never designed for human communication, but for engineering by Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver for the Bell Company. Their goal was to optimize the technical operation of a phone call between machines.

Humans are not predictable machines; our conversations are influenced by moods, experiences and emotions. Reducing the interaction to a technical scheme ignores the emotional context, which is at the core of human communication.