Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 467
One message, many groups listening
The Riley and Riley Model places communicators and receivers inside groups and wider social structures that shape selection, interpretation, and response
Premise
Identical distribution does not create identical reception. The Riley and Riley Model rejects the image of an isolated sender addressing an isolated receiver. Both sides of communication are socially located inside primary groups, organizations, occupations, communities, and wider structures that already contain norms, loyalties, status, language, and expectations.
That changes the unit of diagnosis. A formal announcement can become several local realities as work teams, professions, communities, and organizational positions interpret it through different relationships and constraints. The message is therefore only one element in a social process that is already under way.
What the model is: Riley and Riley Model in Knowledge →
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- The essential model
- Why this matters
- Risks and limits
- Executive takeaway
- Key questions
- Selected sources
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryTheories & Explanatory Models
- DomainOrganization & Structure
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.