Almond compared political communication function to the circulation of blood in human body. It is the medium through which other functions in the political system are performed. NIt is not the blood but what it contains that nourishes the system”, writes Almond. The “blood” is the neutral medium carrying claims, protests and demands through the veins to the heart; and from the heart through the arteries flow the outputs of rules, regulations and adjudications in response to the claims and demands”. He says that communication function is the crucial boundary-maintenance function. Communication facilities are, therefore, of the highest importance in determining the character of a political system. In fact, decision-making depends upon and is determined by contents of communication.
They determine the flow of information between the society and the political system. Styles of political communication also differ in various political systems. They may be manifest or latent, specific or diffuse, particulartic or generalistic, affectively-neutral or affective in modem and traditional societies respectively. But even in the modem systems there is a mixture of these styles, though in them latent, diffuse, particulartic and affective ‘massages’ tend to get translated into manifest, specific, generalistic, and affectively-neutral ones, and also to get “placed in envelopes with the correct political address.”
In this respect Almond contrasts the United States and India, the former being a modem political system, while the latter a mixture of modernity and traditionality. Hence their styles of political communication also differ. In the USA, there is, firstly, homogeneity of political information; and secondly, there are widely distributed ‘interpreters’ of political information, which penetrate the primary cells and connect them with the secondary media of communication In India, the messages are heterogeneous; the impact of the specialised media is relatively limited, and there is a greater gap between the literate modem sector and the illiterate traditional sector, due largely to difference of language And.- cognitive maps. In the U.S. there is mobility of information; in India there are many obstacles, such as those of language, religion, region and of caste system, etc.
Output functions:
They are authoritative decision-making functions of the governmental structures of the conversion process lying “inside the box”. They are of three kinds: rule-making legislative function, rule-application function of the executive organ, and the rule-adjudication function of the judiciary. Some of the outputs of the policy-making functions may be characterised as involving resource extractions (taxes, etc.), distribution of goods and services, regulation of behaviour (e.g. traffic laws) or communication of symbols (e.g. flags, et;.) and information. However, it should be noted that these functions are differently performed in the modem and traditional political systems.
An outcome means the consequences of the policy outputs on the environment or society in which a political system exists. The concept of outcomes is an interesting contribution by Almond to the theory of political system. The outputs of the political system interact with the previous State of the environment and with other events taking place simultaneously within it. They become the outcomes. For example, an increase in educational expenditure under a policy may be diminished by bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption, with the result that the benefits of the expenditures may not come about or may be much lesser than expected. Or take another example, the benefits of the economic development planning may be nullified by population increase.
Feedback:
Feedback means the effects, by which successful or unsuccessful efforts to change the environment have consequences for a new round of political inputs. In other words, feedbacks are the effects of the (outcomes of a policy or law on the environment leading to new demands for inputs. For example, as net expenditures for each pupil decline, parent group, may articulate new demands for further increases in die education budget.