Ideation
What is Ideation?
The process of communication begins with ideation—the creative formation of the idea or selection of a message to be communicated.
An idea consists of the basic element of thought whether visual, verbal, or numerical—that can be written (and read), created as images (and seen or felt), spoken (and heard), video recorded (and seen, heard, and/or read), digitally analyzed (and interpreted), and so forth.
The scope of ‘ideation’ is generally determined by the sender’s knowledge, experiences, and abilities, as well as the purpose of communication and the context of the communicative situation. However, the form of ideation depends on several other factors.
Messages generally have two kinds of content,
- logical
- and emotional.
Logical messages consist of factual information, while emotional messages consist of feelings and emotions.
In a formal communicative situation, ‘ideation’ may consist of finding and selecting a subject or general topic, looking for ideas and thoughts, and deciding the type, scope, and sources of information.