1. Effective communication can be hindered by various barriers in the communication process that can distort messages. Physical, semantic, organizational, psychological, personal, cultural and gender barriers were discussed. 2. Physical barriers include noise, distance, information overload, and environmental factors that can disrupt clear transmission of messages. Semantic barriers occur when senders and receivers assign different meanings to words. Organizational barriers involve issues like status differences, policies and complex structures. 3. Psychological barriers relate to mental states like lack of attention, distrust, and emotions that influence understanding. Personal barriers are individual factors that affect one's ability to communicate. Cultural and gender differences can also introduce barriers if they are not understood by all parties.

1. 1
COMMUNICATION
BARRIERS
Neema Surendran
2nd sem MLibISc
University of Calicut

2. Introduction
Effective communication is achieved when
the message sent is received by cent accuracy
, which is a rare phenomenon. It is because of
various hurdles or barriers in the
Communication process. The hindrances
distort the messages and the communication
becomes ineffective and incomplete.
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3. 3
Barriers to
information
communication
Physical
Barriers

4. Physical Barrier
● These are communication interferences that
occur in the environment in which
communication occurs
● These are easily visible and can take any form,
for instance, closed doors or walls. The physical
barrier is very high if the distance between the
sender and receiver is also too much.
● Physical barriers are described as structural
obstructions in both humanmade and natural
environments 4

5. Some of the interferences are :
■Noise
• There are various types of noise like technological noise,
written noise, and environmental noise, and all of them are
considered physical barriers in communication.
■Distortion
• Distortion means misrepresentation, and that is what
happens when a message is sent. Actual meaning of the
message is lost in transition or during the handling process
while encoding and decoding the communication. In simple
words, human perception can easily distort the meaning of
the message. 5

6. ■ Information overflow
Sometimes, the communication fails as the
information is more than the amount that can be
received by the sender at that specific time.The
receiver is unable to collect the full information
and might miss or misinterpret the message. As
the message fails to get the desired result, it acts
as a physical barrier in communication.
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7. Causes of physical barriers
■Environment
• Includes wind, rain, thunder that creates a random
noise . Improper lighting and sudden thunder distort
proper communication . Unstable temperature is
another environmental factor that is capable of
disturbing the flow of the message.
■Time
• Shortage of time or sending a message in
inappropriate time can be a significant cause of
physical barriers as the message is then not conveyed
effectively. It is essential to keep the time of the
message accurate
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8. ■Distance
If the sender and receiver of the message are
sitting at a far distance, then they will have to
substitute personal communication with emails,
messages, video-conferencing, or phone calls.
Types of physical barriers in the workplace
• Poor lighting
• Background noise
• Closed doors
• Broken and old equipment that is used as a
communication tool
• Uncomfortable temperatures 8

9. Semantic Barrier
● Semantics is the branch of linguistics dealing
with the meaning of words and sentences.
●It occurs when the sender and receiver have
different understandings of the message sent.
●Semantic barriers are concerned with problems
and obstructions in the process of encoding and
decoding of message into words or impressions.
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10. Types of Semantic Barriers in
Communication
Direct meaning of any word
which must be shared by two
people to understand each
other is the denotative
meaning. The barriers that
arise due to the definition or
meaning of a word used
differently by sender and
receiver is denotative barriers
of communication. They
disagree on the meaning of a
word as they are unaware of
the other persons’ meaning.
The implied meaning of a word
is known as Connotative
meaning. Connotative barrier in
communication refers to the
difference of meaning according
to different abstract situations,
contexts, actions and feelings.
Both the communicators know
both meanings of the word, but
use only one meaning according
to the context, which might be
being used differently in the
context.
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Denotative Barriers Connotative Barriers

11. Causes of Semantic Barriers
■ Homophones
Homophones are the words with same pronunciation but
different meaning which might have different spelling too.
For example: Words buy, by and bye. They have same
pronunciation, but different meanings and spellings.
■ Homonyms
Homonyms are the words which have the same
pronunciation and their spellings are mostly same, but the
intended meaning is different.
For example, the noun “bear” and the verb “bear” has
different meanings but same pronunciation and spelling.
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12. ■ Homographs
Homographs are the words that have the same
spelling but the pronunciation and meaning are
different.
Eg : - The research lead to the discovery of lead
■ Cultural difference
Many words have fixed meanings in different
norms. So, confusion arises in communication due
to meaning of different signs and symbols in
different cultures, causing semantic barrier
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13. ■ Difference in use of words
Words can mean something different in two different languages even
though the words have the same pronunciation and spelling.The
unfamiliarity with the word might make the listener react in a bad
way.
■ Differences in dialects
People from different parts of the world use different dialects for the
same language and pronounce a word differently. People, who speak
more than one language can not speak a particular language they use
less in the same way the people whose native language or mother
tongue.
■ Body language and gestures
When what you speak and your body language (kinesics) is different,
the listener can get offended. Inconsistent body language creates
conflict.
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14. Organizational Barriers
■ Status differences : - If sender has a higher
status than receiver , then has a tendency of
not disclosing all the information to receiver to
maintain importance
■ Organizational facilities : - Organization need to
hold meetings , suggestion boxes , and
complaint boxes for effective communication
to increase information potancy
■ Choice of channel
■ Organizational policies 14

15. ■ Complexity in organization structure: In an
organization where there is a number of
managerial levels, communication gets delayed
and distorted a number of filtering points are
more.
■ Poor coordination
■ Goal conflicts
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16. Tips to prevent
organizational barrier
1. face-to-face communication should be
encouraged.
2. top management should take sincere and
concrete actions to establish a free and
permissive climate favoring upward
communication.
3. a people-centered rather than a production-
centered attitude by management along with
an open door in fact as well as in word are
other essential elements for effective
communication.
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17. Psychological or Emotional
Barriers
Communication is highly influenced by the mental
condition that the communicators are in and is
disturbed by mental disturbance. If the people
involved in communication are not emotionally
well, they won’t be able to communicate properly.
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18. Causes of Psychological
Barriers
■ Lack of Attention
When a person’s mind is distracted or preoccupied with other things,
the person is not able to form proper message, listen to what others
tell him/her, interpret the message as required and give proper
feedback.
■ Distrust and Defensiveness
PoorLack of trust makes them derive negative meaning of the
message and they ignore the message. When a person tries to force
his/her own ideas and opinions, then receiver does not listen. If the
receiver does not agree to the message provided or thinks of it as a
threat, he/she will not listen to it.
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19. ■ Poor Retention
Retention of information is the capacity of the memory of the brain to store
information and the way brain stores information in memory. Brain does not
store all the information it comes across, but only the ones it deems useful
for future. So, half the information is lost in the retention process.Similarly,
brain also loses information that is old and not taken as useful with time.
Extracting the information is also a process in the formation of message.
Here, the brain tries to remember the required information, the fragments
of which have already been lost.
■ Closed Mind and Filtering
Man is selfish by nature and put his own needs and problems above all else.
This sometimes leads people to filter information that someone is trying to
convey to them. This might be due to mistrust, competition, jealousy, or the
view that the message is insignificant.
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20. ■ Perception, Viewpoint, Attitudes and
Opinions
● Perception is the mindset using which people judge,
understand and interpret everything. Each person has
his/he own perception of reality which is shaped from
mental and sensory experiences.
● viewpoint is also a mindset to look at the world. Sender
might have a particular viewpoint that is not shared by
the receiver. The sender does not explain the viewpoint
but takes the viewpoint as granted. The message is not
understood by the receiver as must have been
understood, creating a barrier to effective
communication.
● Attitude is the established way in which we think and
feel about things and ideas which also creates a
psychological communication barrier.
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21. ■ Emotions
Anyone who isn’t in a good mood is likely to talk less or
talk negatively.Various other emotions like fear,
nervousness, confusion, mistrust and jealousy affect
communication process.
■ Premature Evaluation
Some people are always in a hurry by habit. These kinds of
people most likely make quick judgments and jump into
conclusions. They do not consider all aspects of the
information such as social, cultural, economic, etc. and
often end up taking quick and wrong decisions.
It is important to hear the whole message to make proper
judgments because they are not changed easily after they
are once made. 21

22. Personal Barriers
The Personal Barriers relate to the factors that are
personal to the sender and receiver and act as a
hindrance in the communication process. These
factors include the life experiences, emotions,
attitudes, behavior that hinders the ability of a
person to communicate.
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24. Financial Barriers
Sometimes people can't communicate their ideas
and opinions in lack of necessary funds
Technological Barriers
Time and Again , technological innovations like
SMS , MMS , e mail etc need one to be acquainted
with the technology. Failure of know-how of a
technology is hurdle to efficient communication 24

25. Cultural Barriers
Different cultures have different meaning of words,
behaviors and gestures. Culture also gives rise to
prejudices, ethnocentrism, manners and opinions. It
forms the way people think and behave. When
people belonging to different cultures
communicate, these factors can become barriers
Causes of Cultural Barriers
■ Language
■ Signs and symbols
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26. ■ Stereotypes and Prejudices
Stereotyping is the process of creating a picture of a whole culture,
overgeneralizing all people belonging to the same culture as having
similar characteristics and categorizing people accordingly. It is a
belief about a certain group and is mostly negative.Stereotyping can
be done on the basis of many things like nationality, gender, race,
religion, ethnicity, age, etc.
■ Behavior and Beliefs
Cultural differences causes behavior and personality differences like
body language, thinking, communication, manners, norms, etc. which
leads to miscommunication.
■ Ethnocentrism
It is the process of dividing cultures as “us” and “them”.The people of
someone’s own culture are categorized as in-group and the other
culture is out-group. There is always greater preference to in-group.
There is an illusion of out-group as evil and inferior. This evaluation is
mostly negative.
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27. ●Gender barriers have become less of an issue in recent
years, but there is still the possibility for a man to
misconstrue the words of a woman, or vice versa.
●Even in a workplace where women and men share equal
stature, knowledge and experience, differing
communication styles may prevent them from working
together effectively.
●can be inherent or may be related to gender stereotypes
and the ways in which men and women are taught to
behave as children.
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Gender Barrier

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Overcoming
Communication
Barriers
Simple Organizational Structure
Avoid Information Overload
Emotional State
Active Listening
Reduction and elimination of
noise levels
Use of Simple Language
Eliminating differences in
perception

29. Conclusion
Communication is not a one-way street. To have
others open up to you, you must be open
yourself. By overcoming the the barriers to
communication, you can ensure that the
statement you are making is not just heard, but
also understood, by the person you are speaking
with. In this way, you can be confident that your
point has been expressed
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30. References
• https://www.businesstopia.net/communication/psych
ological-barriers
• https://businessjargons.com/personal-
barriers.html#:~:text=Definition%3A%20The%20Person
al%20Barriers%20relate,of%20a%20person%20to%20co
mmunicate.
• https://www.managementstudyguide.com/overcomin
g-communication-barriers.htm
• Information Communication and society - Bhaskar
Mukherjee
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THANK YOU