ate communication. This shapes the message in that the company is seeking to achieve specific business objectives that may change over time.
The message is that which is communicated, whether the content of a commercial, the content of a print ad, or the content of a Web site. Messages are by their nature encoded, whether in language, through symbols, or in gestures. Messages must also be decoded by the recipient once they are received. A single message may be to position a product in a particular manner so that a given brand has a given position within the market. Thus Coca-Cola may position itself as having good taste and appealing to younger consumers, and it might use many different channels (the next step in the Lasswell model) to convey that single message. To some degree, the message determines the channels that are used (Youn, 2003).
The channel is the medium that is used to send the message. For corporate communicators, this includes television advertisements, print ads, radio advertisements, and press releases. Other media include the Web, promotional tools such as direct mail, corporate sponsorship of sporting events or cultural events, and outdoor advertising such as billboards or bus stop posters. When selecting the channel, the communicator takes into account the message and the intended recipient as well as budget constraints that might limit the channels that can be used ("Total Quality Communication," n.d.).
The receiver is responsible for decoding the message that has come from the sender through a specific channel. In interpersonal communication, this consists of little more than listening to words and calling on the sender's background and knowledge of language to interpret those words. When a mass medium such as television or print advertising is used by a corporate communicator, however, the message is targeted not to a single receiver, but rather to a number of receivers. Each of these individ...