The transmission of information from the sender to the recipient through some medium is called as communication. Communication enables us to know what is happening around us. It helps us to share our knowledge with others and also gain from other individual’s thoughts and ideas. Communication takes place through various routes and channels and with the help of a medium. A person can chat with his distant relative over the phone and thus the medium of communication in this case is the telephone.

Communication can also take place with the help of light. The airport officials give various signals through light to the pilots for their safe landing. In this case communication is through light and hence is termed as Optical communication. Satellites also play a vital role in communication by receiving signals from the earth station, amplifying it and then resending it back to the earth. Communication can take place with the aid of an artificial satellite between two points on the earth. In the same way signal can also be sent in a digitalized form as in case of Digital communication.

The process of communication is initiated the moment the sender gets some thought in his brain. To share his ideas with others, the thoughts must be converted into a meaningful content by careful selection of words. This process is also called as encoding. In digital communication, the thought is converted in a digital format for the recipient to understand. In this mode of communication, the data or the information is transferred electronically with the help of computers.

Thus digital communication is a mode of communication where the information or the thought is encoded digitally as discreet signals and electronically transferred to the recipients. Digital communication is one of the most commonly used mode of communication in the current scenario. Organizations generally rely on this mode for all their business communications.

Let us understand digital communication with the help of an example.

Jim wanted to meet all his team members at the conference room to discuss their key responsibility areas and areas of expertise. He didn’t have the time to go to their workstations and invite them individually. Instead he opted an easier and cheaper mode to communicate his idea. He sent an email marking a cc to all the participants, inviting them for the meeting. This is an example of Digital communication where the information was sent electronically.  In digital communication information flows in a digital form and the source is generally the keyboard of the computer. A single individual is capable of digital communication and thus it also saves wastage of manpower and is one of the cheapest modes of communication. Digital communication is also a really quick way to communicate. The information can reach the recipient within a fraction of a second. An individual no longer has to wait to personally meet the other individual and share his information.

Digital communication can take place anytime. You just need to have your computer and you can communicate and share your ideas and thoughts anytime anywhere just by the click of a button.

The disadvantage of digital communication is the recipient can’t view the expressions of the sender and has to rely only on the information sent to him. Facial expressions don’t really matter in digital communication. One must master the art of writing emails for an effective digital communication. Always remember the other person can’t see you; he just has to depend on the mail. Your e mail has to be impressive and relevant to create the desired impact and for the recipient to respond and give his feedback. A person putting up in India can now very easily chat and even see his friend putting up in Los Angeles, thanks to video conferencing and Digital communication. Faceboook, Orkut, Twitter are also instrumental in digital communication. Through these social networking sites individuals try to communicate what is new in their lives or share any other important information with friends and relatives. A simple tweet or a scrap can actually let the other person know a lot about the other individuals.