Communication
Thesis statement:
Various implications of the representation of race and ethnicity in popular culture and its impact on intercultural communications
The paper will discuss about the facts relating to intercultural communication and how the representation of race and ethnicity on popular media and society influences this communication. (Gray, John, 2000)
Also, it will touch upon the impact that language barriers and internationalism has on intercultural communications.
Scholarly Articles/Sources:
Below given are the four articles/sources that will be used for discussing the paper:
- Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Communication Research: Some Reflections about Culture and Qualitative Methods by María Assumpta Aneas & María Paz Sandín
http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1251/2738
This article talks about qualitative methods employed to know the ‘cultural’ differences in the text or meanings of words used, and how this will affect the intercultural communications.
This article is a good source for understanding the difficulties/hardships faced in assessing a good intercultural communication.
- The Impact of New Media on Intercultural Communication
in Global Context, by Guo-Ming Chen
http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=com_facpubs
The above mentioned article addresses the effect of new media on the intercultural communications, how media influence the communications between people belonging to different ethnic groups, etc. It also focuses on the opposite aspect of how the behavior of society in terms of intercultural communications has influenced the media. (Goffman, Erving, 1968)
This article can be used as a good source to relate to how the portrayal of race and ethnicity will influence intercultural communications in general.
- Intercultural communications by Rene Dirven and Martin Putz
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2766260
- Identification and Assessment of Intercultural Competence as a Student Outcome of Internationalization
Darla K. Deardorff
http://jsi.sagepub.com/content/10/3/241.short
This article is conceptualized based on the agreements of students and scholars about the discussions made for intercultural communications. This is going to be a quite useful source, since it can offer a lot of material to research about. Apart from this, many scholarly thoughts on intercultural communications can be obtained from this.
Part – 2
- Chapter – 5 identity and intercultural communication
The chapter deals with giving a dialectical approach to understanding identity that includes three communication approaches – social science, interpretive and critical.
The theory of impression management, which suggests “how people present themselves and how they guide the impression others form of them (Goffman, 1959)”,
can be applied to this research paper.
- Chapter – 6 Language and intercultural communication
The chapter talks about how language is an important aspect of intercultural communication. This can be linked again to the scholarly article by María Assumpta Aneas & María Paz Sandín.
Perception of language is addressed here using two viewpoints – that of a norminalist and the relativist. (Fukuyama, Francis, 1992)
- Chapter – 9 Popular culture and intercultural communication
How the perspective of a person is, when he arrives in a new country, with people of different ethnicity and race, is described here.
The theory of “Popular culture and stereotyping” can be linked to the sitcoms selected for research, since the stereotyping applies mostly to the media.
- Chapter -12 Striving for engaged and effective intercultural communication
Continuing the last part about four ways of approaching intercultural communication, this chapter focuses on the social science approach.
“Scholars are taking a social science perspective have identified four basic components or building blocks of intercultural competence – motivation, knowledge, attitudes and behaviors(Wiseman, 2002)”
Part -3:
The two examples which can be had about intercultural communications and representation of racism and ethnicity are from the sitcoms.
One of the sitcoms is the ‘30 Rock’, which has a cast containing people of different race and ethnic groups communicating with each other.
Another such example is the movie “Life of Pi”. The director here belongs to a completely different ethnic group and culture and the main cast belongs to a different cultural group. The movie portrays some spectacular intercultural communications, when the main character recalls the life-changing incident of his life with an author. (Again, belonging to a different ethnic group) (Hobbsbawm, Eric, 1992)
References:
Fukuyama, Francis (1992) The end of history and the last man New York: Free Press
Goffman, Erving (1968) Asylums: essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates Harmondsworth: Penguin
Gray, John (2000) Two Faces of Liberalism Cambridge: Polity Press
Hobbsbawm, Eric (1992) Nations and Nationalism since 1780 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
