How can noise be minimized in communication?

Noise affects communication by somehow altering the message. In a very basic model of communication, a message has to pass from the receiver to the recipient through a channel (like the air, television, a printed page, etc.).

Noise is something that interferes with the transmission of the message through the channel. An easy way to think of this is to picture static on a TV. The static is the noise that interferes with the transmission of the TV program through the channel of your cable box or satellite dish. This makes it difficult to understand the message sent by the TV program; you may not hear what someone on TV says correctly, and so misinterpret what they say, for example.

Noise doesn't necessarily have to be something external that affects the channel. It can also be something internal to the recipient that affects how they receive the message. An example of this is if someone is in a bad mood. Being in a bad mood makes you more likely to interpret other people's messages as negative or hostile; the noise of your emotion affects how you see what they're trying to communicate.