The Shannon-Weaver Model:
Claude Shannon was a research scientist at Bell Telephone Company trying to achieve maximum telephone line capacity with minimum distortion. He had never intended for his mathematical theory of signal transmission for anything but telephones. But when Warren Weaver applied Shannon's concept of information loss to interpersonal communication, one of the most popular models of communication was created.

According to Shannon and Weaver's model, a message begins at an information source, which is relayed through a transmitter, and then sent via a signal towards the receiver. But before it reaches the receiver, the message must go through noise .Finally, the receiver must convey the message to its destination. The Shannon–Weaver model of communication has been called the "mother of all models.It embodies the concepts of information source, message, transmitter, signal, channel, noise, receiver, information destination, probability of error, coding, decoding, information rate, channel capacity, etc

he Shannon-Weaver Model (1947) proposes that all communication must include six elements:
1. a source
2. an encoder
3. a message
4. a channel
5. a decoder
6. a receiver
These six elements are shown graphically in the model. As Shannon was researching in the field of information theory, his model was initially very technology-oriented. The emphasis here is very much on the transmission and reception of information. 'Information' is understood rather differently from the way you and I would normally use the term, as well. This model is often referred to as an 'information model' of communication.


The term Shannon–Weaver model was widely adopted into the social science fields, such as education, organizational analysis, psychology, etc. In engineering and mathematics fields, Shannon's theory is used more literally, and referred to by his name alone, as Shannon theory, or as information theory,since the popularized model of Weaver is not needed to utilize Shannon's mathematical results