Concept
circular model (Osgood–Schramm)
The textbook name for the model in which each participant both encodes, decodes and interprets and the message travels back and forth; Schramm’s texts credit the idea to Osgood.
The “circular” or “Osgood–Schramm” model describes communication as a process that goes back and forth: one person encodes a message, the other decodes and interprets it, and then encodes a reply. In this way both people are encoder, decoder and interpreter.
But the name itself was given later. In his 1954 chapter Schramm says in a footnote that he owes the diagram of learning theory to Osgood; he says that the process has no ends and that everyone both encodes and decodes, but he does not say “circular”. In 1971 he attributes to Osgood the scheme in which each participant receives and sends, encodes and decodes, and interprets, and refers to an undated text by Osgood. The name “Osgood–Schramm circular model” is common in secondary sources and does not occur in this combined form in either of Schramm’s two texts.
In an exam use the label; in your own writing separate who brought what: Schramm (1954), drawing on Osgood’s ideas.
Example
Two friends texting: one writes, the other replies; since each message answers the previous one, both take turns as source and receiver. (Hypothetical example.)