THE SPEAKER IS THE MESSAGE
Communication is all about CONNECTION. We communicate not only to inform or express an idea but also to influence and effect change.
Another word I associate with communication is IMPACT.
Connection speaks of one’s ability to capture the audience’s attention so that they are on the same page with the speaker and the communication loop is achieved (Harrington & Lewis, 2014).
If in the 20th century the medium was declared as THE message (McLuhan, 1964), in the 21st century I propose that the speaker IS and WILL always be the message. I argue that the sender is the make-or-break of every communicative situation.
Said differently, the success of every communication WILL almost ALWAYS depend on the communication’s initiator or source who is often tasked to move or transform their audience and the latter’s actions, decisions, and beliefs.
“The speaker IS the message. The sender will always be the hero or villain in communication, the make-or-break of every communicative situation.”
With this being theorized, I advise communicators at all levels — from CEOs to rank-and-file to classroom teachers — to be armed with this new philosophy in this age of stiff competition in communication where the power of the speaker is always on the spotlight, and the ability to captivate attention and sustain it is the name of the game.
Provided in this article is a framework which draws inspiration from David Berlo’s (1960) theory of communication. Berlo’s SMCR model enables us to understand the elements in a communication process and the psychology behind it. In addition, his schema provides a basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the source (sender) and the message as well as the role of the two other components, namely, channel and receivers.
What the MIT professor missed to highlight in his model was the enormous power or role that the source of communication has, putting an equal value on the context of the receivers (although it does matter greatly) and their ability to determine results.
I contend that a successful communication, while it must be audience-centered, must first and foremost be source-controlled or speaker-driven. In the evaluation guide provided here, I highlight the centrality of the source or speaker, reflected in their capacity to connect and eventually effect some favorable feedback or results.
Under the Source element by Berlo, I would like to point to two Cs, namely credentials and credibility. We know that the latter is influenced by the former; but over and beyond one’s level of training, education, and expertise, every communicator must also demonstrate a character that is, for example, amiable and acceptable, for lacking thereof could potentially hamper a successful transmission of a message no matter how critical.
The audience, if not moved by a powerful content, is often influenced by a communicator who practices what they preach. Conversely, there seems to be a seamless connection between or among the speaker’s charisma, their well-crafted content, and their background.
Finally, language use demands “far more than an abstract set of grammatical rules” (Ahearn, 2017, p.11), which means while the communicator is the hero, context is a crucial battlefield where the war of communication must be waged.
In short, there are sociocultural factors in interaction that influence, and hence, must be taken into consideration, when engaging in various levels of communication. Again, this relates to the communicator’s keenness of paralinguistic and/or extralinguistic elements which would demonstrate their sociocultural or communicative competence (Bachman, 1990).
To evaluate individuals engaged in oral communication, we need to come up with a more responsive tool in determining their effectiveness or lack thereof. (I define effectiveness as, at least during the communication process, the skill to draw your audience to you and your content, and what happens next is or will perhaps be just an added bonus).
To wrap up, I would like to iterate that the domination of the medium together with the message, as McLuhan has claimed, is a thing of the past. Admit it or not, the speaker WILL always be the hero or villain in every communicative situation.
References:
Ahearn, L. M. (2017). Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology (2nd ed). Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
Bachman, L. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing. New York: Oxford University Press.
Berlo, D. K. (1960). The process of communication. New York, New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Harrington, H. J., & Lewis, R. (2014). Closing the communication gap: An effective method for achieving desired results. Florida: CRC Press.
Hymes, D. (1972). “On communicative competence”. In Pride, J.B. & Holmes, J. Sociolinguistics: selected readings. Harmondsworth: Penguin. pp. 269–293.
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
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Rafael I. Santos is a Ph. D. Candidate (English Studies major in Language) from the University of the Philippines Diliman, and was a long-time media and broadcast practitioner before venturing into the academe, research, and communication and research consultancy.
