“Models of communication are…not merely representations of communication but representations for communication: templates that guide, unavailing or not, concrete processes of human interaction, mass and interpersonal.” - James Carey, Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society

The Shannon and Weaver Model - The Late Age of Print

The genius of Shanon’s original paper from 1948 and its subsequent popularization by Weaver lies in many things, among them, their having formulated a model of communication located on the threshold of these two understandings of theory. As a scientist Shannon surely felt accountable to the empirical world, and his work reflects that. Yet, it also seems clear that Shannon and Weaver’s work has, over the last 60 years or so, taken on a life of its own, feeding back into the reality they first set about describing. Shannon and Weaver didn’t merely model the world; they ended up enlarging it, changing it, and making it over in the image of their research.