MANAGING COMMUNICATION MANAGING COMMUNICATION IN CULTURAL DIVERSITYIN CULTURAL DIVERSITY

CROSS CULTURE COMMUNICATION

INTRODUCTION Meeting & dealing with people from different

countries & different culture is common things today.Therefore, it is crucial for us to understand the concept of communication across culture in order to build an effective communication.

DEFINATION OF CULTURE

Trenholm’s (1996) = that set of values , belief, norms, rules & codes that socially define groups of people, giving them a sense of commonality.

Beebe,beebe & Redmond (1999)+ a learned knowledge, behavior,attitudes, beliefs, & values also norms that is shared by a group of people.

Example: We may perceive someone with a different hair color to belong to a different group of people or race.

CULTURAL ELEMENTS To increase our understanding of cross culture communication. Every culture has its own cultural elements that make it unique. Cultural elements are made up of the specific categories of thing & ideas

(Beebe,Beebe&Redmond 1999) The elements are:

Material culture: eg. things or ideas

Social institutions:. eg. schools

Belief systems: eg. Ideas about individuals and the universe.

Aesthetic: eg. art or music

Language: eg. verbal & nonverbal communication system.

COMMUNICATION & CULTURE

Culture influences the norms & character of an individuals. Ex: Asians don’t like to communicate with Swiss because Swiss people

depend heavily on verbal cues The occurrence of ineffective communication across culture is due to the fact

that communicators fail to identify the values of the different cultures. Therefore, Hodstede (1980) presents four variables that are used to identify

the values observed in most culture.

MASCULINE & FEMININE PERSPECTIVE

Masculine cultures usually value achievement, assertiveness, heroism, & material wealth.

Feminine cultures value relationship, love, care, & quality of life. Ex: women who exhibit traits of male values may be labeled unfavorably for

acting like men.

AVOIDANCE OF UNCERTAINTY

In a culture where uncertainty is avoided, people tend to feel threatened when certain situations are ambiguous.

So we must understand their codes of behavior to not labeled as being discourteous.

For the people from higher tolerance of uncertainty , they more relaxed.

Ex. When we communicate with low tolerance of ambiguity people for the first time try not to stand too close to them.

DISTRIBUTION OF POWER

Hofstede (in Adler and Towne,1995) introduced “power distance” to describe the degree to which members of a society are more willing to accept unequal distribution of power.

Some cultures are low in power difference meaning that the people strive to minimize the difference between various social classes .

Members from the high power distance society believe that a certain institution must have the authority to control the people for the sake of unity & harmony.

Ex: the person from the high power distance society may rely more on the other person & the person from the low power distance

society harder to gather opinions & make a collective decision.

INDIVIDUALISM

People from an individualistic culture tend to take full responsibility in taking care of themselves & their immediate family.

They value individual achievements more than collective accomplishments & take full responsibility for failures individually.

People from collective culture expect more support from others & loyalty in the community.They share responsibility for achievements & failures collectively.

The concept of individualism in culture must be acknowledged as it has a significant impact on communication between people from two different perspectives.

Ex: a person from the collective culture will face great difficulties working with people from individualism culture as he or she may have difficulties getting help from his or her individualistic peers.

GLOBAL VILLAGE

INTRODUCTION Formerly when communication was not developed,people from many different countries were not able to share their culture.Now with advancement of communication technology such as internet and satellite TV.communication to day has no boundary.Like wise,the world is changing into a global village.

CONCEPT

Marshall MC Luhan

=To describe how media could integrate people and share new form of culture among them.It is new form of social organization that would inheritably emerge, as the instantaneous, electronic media tied the entire world into one great social system(Baren Davis,1995)

=The electronic media would become the extension of man which literary mean the media would extend humans sense such as sight hearing and touch , enabling people to be connected every where and instantaneously across long distances thus “shrinking” space.

The internet or handphone , we can sent a message and greeting to our friend to show that we a thinking of them.

HOT AND COOL MEDIA

HOT MEDIA Give information and do not leave so much to be

fill in or completed by the sense of the receiver

information in the hot media is assumed to be

more complete and though.Eg;radio,print

media as new paper. _

COOL MEDIA That provide less information and the receiver have to make

their own interpretation of the image and message delivered. The received have to also fill missing sensory information which

they receive from the cool media. Eg;television,telephone or speech.

THE POPULAR CULTURE

Definition=popular literature and broadcasting, popular , music, popular dance,and theater ,sport and recreation and other culture aspect of social life distinguished by their broad-based presence across ethnic social and regional grouping .

Eg;coca-cola,Mc Donald,KFC and other. Horance Newcomb(Baran and Daris,1995)

=It research that demonstrated popular television program could have profound influence or large audiences.

=Eg;popular program or movie (Academy fantasia ,America idol and other)

=Eg;commercial advertisement (Mc Donald ,coca-cola ,KFC and other)

THE CONCLUSION….The concept of global village coined by

MC Luhan was formerly just an idea to describe the impact of media tecnology to our present life.

COMMUNICATION BARRIERS IN CULTURAL

DIVERSITY

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Coding rules & cultural norm which influence your pattern of communication.

They do not know much about other’s cultural and lifestyle.

The differences is your cultural with the other individuals culture is the variance between the verbal and nonverbal codes,

BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

ETHNOCENTRISMDIFFERENT

COMMUNICATION CODESSTEREOTYPING &

PREJUDIEASSUMING SIMILARITY

Ethnocentrism Ethnocentricsm is an attitude, which

focuses only on our own culture in everything we do.

So, we will have difficulty communicating interculturally if we do not have tolerance towards other people's culture.

Ethnocentrism also promotes cultural superiority where we think our culture is superior to others. With this kind of an attitude there will be difficulty in communication. This is because to have an effective cross-cultural communication, we need to respect and accept views from different cultural perspective.

we only believe in our cultural practices and we only give views based on our culture. Apart from that, we will also use our culture as a guideline in interpreting and managing cross-cultural communication.

DIFFERENT COMMMUNICATION CODES

-Differences in communication codes and symbols also contribute to barriers in cross cultural communication.

-to understand the language and symbols in order to interpret it. However, it is difficult to interpret communication codes from different culture as the communication code might be different from our culture or the interpretation might be different. So, we will not be able to communicate interculturally as our understanding of other culture's verbal and nonverbal codes is limited.

STEREOTYPING AND PREJUDICE

Stereotype is a point of view, which we have in our mind about someone or something. In communication, stereotype affects our communication because we have our own perspective on someone based on his or her origin, race or religion that will influence our communication pattern.

Prejudice also has more or less the same kind of impact as stereotyping

. As you do not trust her it is kind of difficult to have an effective communication process with her, as you will doubt all her view and actions. This feeling will lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations in the communication process.

Assuming Similarity

. The attitude of assuming other people's behavior is a barrier in cross-cultural communication. This is because in assuming similarity you are focusing on superficial factors in forming an impression of the other person. Due to the cultural differences, more time is needed to explore the background and culture of others before identifying their behavior.

CONTEXT OF CULTURECONTEXT OF CULTURE

INTRODUCTION A common problem in communicating

across culture is our failure to understand the verbal & nonverbal codes in the interaction.

E.g. two communicators from different cultures involved in a conversation may convey & receive confusing messages that constrain effective communication

Edward T.Hall, a renowned scholar in sociology, culture can categorized into two different context. They are:

High-context culture Low-context culture

THE HIGH CONTEXTT CULTURE

a culture that relies heavily on verbal & nonverbal cues to maintain social harmony(Adler,Rosenfeld&Towne,1995)

Mostly consists of people from the Asian region . Beebe,Beebe&Redmond(1999) – the people of the high-context culture

emphasize certain aspects, which they consider as important in a communication process.

The aspects are: Nonverbal cues must accompany verbal messages to ensure the messages is

fully understood. Information should flow freely. Information conveyed&received is relied upon physical situations. Environment, situation,gestures,mood are all taken into account in

encoding&decoding of messages. Information networks are extensively maintained.

THE LOW – CONTEXT CULTURE

Adler,Rosenfeld&Towne = a culture that uses language primarily to express thoughts, feelings &ideas as clearly &logically as possible.

Beebe,Beebe&Redmond = in low-context culture information must be provided explicitly, usually in words.

Members of this context mostly from the European

The specific characteristic: Less aware of nonverbal cues,environment &situation Adopt information networks that are less developed. Tend to segment information. Control information flow. Prefer explicit&careful directions from credible sources. Value knowledge as a commodity.

COMMUNICATING IN DIFFERENT CULTURAL CONTEXTS

We need to be competent verbally & nonverbally.

This is because when we deal with people from high-high context &low-context cultures,the communication process may not be effective if the verbal & nonverbal codes are not encoded&decoded accurately.

So, if you are able to speak a foreign language,it will enable you to have an effective communication process with the people concerned.

VERBAL COMMUNICATION STYLE

People from the low context culture often emphasizes directness to speak out their feelings,opinions&thoughts contrary to people from the high-context culture who are more comfortable with the less direct style.

Certain cultures demand elaboration in verbal communication compared to others.

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION STYLE

As we are well aware nonverbal communication is emphasized in high context culture,so it is importants to have nonverbal cues together with verbal cues in order to have effective communication process.

CONTEXT OF CULTURE

In addition, many nonverbal codes are universally understood & shared by many people from different cultures.

However some nonverbal codes are very different from one culture to another.

CONCLUSION

We can say that understanding the culture is an important aspect in cross cultural communication . This is because the context of culture plays an important role in deciding whether your messages gets across to the other person or not.