A hospital in a particular community has been very proactive about controlling their healthcare costs. Over the past month, the local newspaper has run a series of stories highlighting the rising cost of health care. When the hospital did a community survey on their image a month later, they were rated poorly on cost-effectiveness. In this example, channel noise was the problem, not the hospital's poor encoding process.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Channel noise refers to any interference that occurs during the communication process, which can distort or block the message. In this case, the newspaper stories about the rising cost of healthcare acted as channel noise, as they interfered with the hospital's message about their cost-effectiveness.

A Hospital in a Particular Community Has Been Very Proactive