Channels of Human Communication

Abstract

Channels are the physical connections through which communication is made possible. Foundational models of communication posit the channel as a baseline component of signal transmission, the necessary precondition for a speech event to take place between speaker and listener. The concept of “channel” is central to models of communication, information theory, and media studies. Recent scholarship on communicative infrastructure, including new materialist approaches to media and technology, attends to the ways that channels presuppose and generate interpretive contexts for users. Commonsense metaphors of communication as channel, container, and conduit continue to inspire and frustrate theoretical approaches to communication.