Communication Models & Source Credibility

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Abstractions about senders, receivers, channels, metacommunication, identity legitimacy, warning signals, and evidence used to judge online sources.

5 abstractions in this family — domain-specific abstractions that sit near one another in structural-signature space (k-means over structural-signature embeddings). Each is shown with its short description.

• Beware of the dog — A conventional boundary warning that signals possible canine danger and may deter entry independently of whether the threat is real.
• Illegitimate receiver — An unintended organism that intercepts another organism’s communication signal and gains information that can alter fitness.
• Meta-communication — Communication that frames how another message, code or relationship is to be interpreted.
• Source–message–channel–receiver model of communication — A linear communication model describing how a source encodes a message, sends it through a channel and reaches a receiver who decodes it.
• Warranting theory — A theory that observers give greater credence to information about a person when the person has less ability to manipulate that information.