Logistics or Semiotics?
17 July 2009
Logistics or Semiotics?
If you want effective internal communication that results in high levels of employee engagement you need to consider the methods and system used to facilitiate the exploration of meaning of a clear robust message and how those methods and systems enable feedback.
Two important theories related to this internal communication challenge are;
- Process ~ Show me the Road
- Semiotics ~ Reading the Signs
The Process School concentrates on the accurate transmission of messages and the robustness of the methods and systems chosen for moving the messages around. On the premise is that the message is properly encoded or stated and the system of
transfer is without interference that the message should be received as sent.
If you take a purely linear approach to this then you’d believe it possible to inject a message (via a Hypodermic Needle & Syringe) into a recipient who would passively accept the message without argument or distortion…
Now you might want to concede that the recipient may want to bring his or her own thought processes to bear on the contents of the message and even give a response or some feedback…
We can still hear some of the language from the earlier linear model in Advertising, Marketing and Sales today. Targeting an audience for instance
More sensitive terms used recently include; making a connection or creating a dialogue.
Semiotics of Internal Communication ~ Reading the signs
The Semiotics School is concerned with the production of the “signs” (text, images, artefacts) and exchange of meaning. It uses very different terms to express how symbols and meanings are created and exchanged. The Semiotic School captures elements not included in the process school, including how the written or spoken word is interpreted; the impact of gestures, attitude or emotion, or even something as general as the clothes people are wearing at the time!
To coin a word, such that it refers to a thing, the community must agree on that simple meaning within their language. But that word can transmit that meaning only within the language's grammatical structures and codes. Such structures and codes also represent the values of the community’s culture and are able to add new shades of connotation to every aspect of life.
To explain the relationship between the Semiotics and Process Schools; consider that communication is defined as the process
of transferring data from a source to a receiver as efficiently and effectively as possible. Hence, communication theorists construct models based on:
1. codes, meanings, contexts and
2. mechanics, systems and media, involved.
Both schools also recognise that the technical process cannot be separated from the fact that the receiver must decode the data, i.e. be able to distinguish the data as salient and make meaning out of it.
Semiotics or Linguistics?
Semiotics should be distinguished from linguistics. Although both start from the same point, semiotics links linguistic facts to non-linguistic facts to give a broader empirical coverage and to offer conclusions that seem more plausible because, intuitively, humans understand that one can only interpret language in a social context.
Pure linguistics dismantles language into its components, analysing usage in slow-time, whereas, in the real world of human semiotic interaction there is an often chaotic blur of language and signal exchange which semiotics attempts to analyse and so identify the systemic rules accepted by all the participants.
If you can’t separate them ~ you might as well join them…
So it is most fruitful for internal communication and employee
engagement if you creatively consider both;
- The methods and systems you wish to communicate through and
- The meaning you and others might make of the signals you send.
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