A source is one of the basic concepts of communication and information processing. Sources (or senders) are objects which encodemessagedata and transmit the information, via a channel, to one or more observers (or receivers). To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... In general, information processing is the changing (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an observer. ... For other senses of the word code, see code (disambiguation). ... Message in its most general meaning is an object of communication. ... In general, data consist of propositions that reflect reality. ... In telecommunications, transmission is the act of transmitting electrical messages (and the associated phenomena of radiant energy that passes through media). ... Information is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the person receiving it. ... Channel, in communications (sometimes called communications channel), refers to the medium used to convey information from a sender (or transmitter) to a receiver. ... In general, an observer is any system which receives information from an object. ...
In the strictest sense of the word, particularly in information theory, a source is a process that generates message data that one would like to communicate, or reproduce as exactly as possible somewhere else in space or time. A source may be modelled as memoryless, ergodic, stationary, or stochastic, in order of increasing generality. A bundle of optical fiber. ... The ergodic hypothesis is a postulate of thermodynamics. ... Stationary can mean: Look up stationary in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Stochastic, from the Greek stochos or goal, means of, relating to, or characterized by conjecture; conjectural; random. ...
"Mass communication" is a more specialized academic discipline focused on the institutions, practice and effects of journalism, broadcasting, advertising, public relations and related mediated communication directed at a large, undifferentiated or segmented audience.
As the technology evolved, communication protocol also had to evolve; for example, Thomas Edison had to discover that hello was the least ambiguous greeting by voice over a distance; previous greetings such as hail tended to be lost or garbled in the transmission.
As regards human communication these diverse fields can be divided into those which cultivate a thoughtful exchange between a small number of people (debate, talk radio, e-mail, personal letters) on the one hand; and those which disseminate broadly a simple message (Public relations, television, cinema).
Feeds |
Contact