Shannon-Weaver and Kanye West

I feel that the Shannon-Weaver model is essentially just as relevant today as it was when developed. While the intentions may not seem the same, most steps are very applicable to modern digital communications, even if those steps are interpreted in a different way. I think an interesting way of exemplifying this would be to look at digital communication through the perspective of a public figure, say Kanye West. Kanye is known for always having messages he wishes to spread to his audience, making him the source. For this example, lets simply say he would like to promote his new album. The encoding process may be reducing his message to 140 characters, and deciding on text that will attract the most attention. As mentioned, his message would be to promote his album, however the message itself may not actually have much substance to it. Kanye must then decide which social media he should utilize to send out this message, although nowadays there does not have to be one singular channel, as suggested by the model. The noise this message would potentially face would be media misconceptions or simply the broken English/not yet common vocabulary that not many understand. I would argue that if it happens at all, the decoding process would happen once the receiver (his followers on Twitter) takes in the message, rather than before. The decoding process would clarify the noise. Feedback, of course, would be traced most immediately in terms of retweets and later in terms of album sales.The more feedback Kanye gets, the stronger his presence as a source gets, and the more ready and apt he is to continue this model again.