Metaphors for communication

My former colleague Brian Lewis talked of a medical metaphor prevalent among educational theorists. A knowledge deficiency is diagnosed and a course of treatment prescribed until knowledge levels, as measured by tests, are normal. He contrasted this with a gardening metaphor in which the gardener creates an environment in which learning can flourish, with occasional interventions such as sowing, training and pruning.

Actually, in the context of medical information, the medical metaphor is about right – you do need patients to understand the dosages and side effects of medicines.

I have another couple of metaphors. First of all, there’s the saloon which represents the classic Shannon Weaver communication model. Here, a message (whiskey) is transmitted via medium (the bar) to the receiver (the cowboy). No whiskey must spill, because we don’t want to anger the cowboy, so the barman adds a bit extra. This represents redundancy, which is needed in case the communication is degraded by noise (a bump in the bar).

My preferred model is the supermarket. Here the goods are put on display by the grocer. The customer can then pick what they need. The grocer presents them in functional ways (chilled food, frozen food, canned food) and also grouped as genres (baking supplies, party foods). And some are presented as persuasive arguments (strawberries with cream). This allows for selective or strategic shopping (reading).

In case you’re wondering, these graphics are the best I could manage with MacDraw on a Mac Plus in around 1985.

Mintz, A. I. (2018). The present, past, and future of the gardening metaphor in education. Oxford Review of Education, 44(4), 414–424.

Robert Waller (1987) The typographic contribution to language, PhD Thesis, University of Reading