In the 1940s, Paul F. Lazarsfeld defined international communication as a study of the “processes by which various cultures influence each other” (Lazarsfeld 1976, 485). The term culture has been defined in a variety of ways over the years. An all-encompassing definition of culture was given by Kroeber: culture “is a way of habitual acting
Normative conduct is a major component of systems of culture. Each culture has its specific norms for everyday social interaction. Differences in norms and cultural expectations often become grounds for intercultural miscommunication and misunderstanding. There are innumerable definitions of norms in the social science literature. For example, norms are defined as “rules of conduct,” “blueprints
Competent intercultural conflict management depends on many factors. One of the key factors is to increase our awareness and knowledge concerning diverse conflict styles and facework issues. Intercultural conflict can be defined as any implicit or explicit antagonistic struggle between persons of different cultures due, in part, to cultural or ethnic group membership differences. Beyond
Major social changes of the twentieth century include international air travel, global business expansion, increased migration across national boundaries, and recognition of the civil rights of various minority groups. This means that individuals will frequently come into contact with people from other nations and from other cultural groups within a large and diverse nation such
In the twenty-first century mankind lives in a more multicultural environment than ever before. For many health practitioners this means they have to interact with people from different cultures. Good communication is vital to effective health-care, so communication problems in intercultural encounters have the potential to lead to patient misdiagnosis. In such encounters health practitioners
Intercultural education may be viewed as an application of cultural anthropology to the design and implementation of formal educational curricula, largely in prebaccalaureate programs. Its goal is to instill in students an appreciation of other cultures so as to offset a dogmatic and unproductive ethnocentric worldview. In an interconnected world where the capability to deal
Although public relations practice is slightly ahead of the public relations body of knowledge, both have developed ethnocentrically in the twentieth century, based predominantly on experience and research from the United States and to a lesser extent from some countries in Europe (Sriramesh & Vercic 2003; Van Ruler & Vercic 2004). However, public relations practice
Social groups, such as adolescents, police, and ethnic groups, very often have their own distinctive cultures that include such ingredients as specialized foods and utensils, customs and rituals, dress styles, art, music, dance, rituals, literature, and so forth, while other intergroup situations (e.g., artificially constructed laboratory groups) constitute social categories that cannot claim such cultural