Understanding Culture and Communication

Communicating across cultures has become a challenge that the world has never known before. With the advent of electronic tools of communication and the ease of travelling around the globe, people who previously co-existed in fairly homogenous communities now find themselves in unfamiliar cultural territories where the rules of communicating are unclear. Globalization is minimising, perhaps even erasing differences, there by potentially reducing cross-cultural misunderstandings. But these “erasures” only go so far. Cultural differences can never be, nor should they be, fully obliterated. Thus, chances for misunderstandings continue to occur, at times in unprecedented forms.

We rely excessively on the processes of globalization if we assume that any differences will cease to matter. Contact with another culture can evoke scepticism, fear, and defensiveness, both in face-to-face contact and remotely. Cultures differ, and sensitivity to and understanding of another culture is a requirement both for successful communication and global citizenship.

To understand the processes and principles of intercultural communication, we should explain the terms “culture” and “communication.” “Culture” is a notion taken from the field of anthropology. It refers to the practices and products of a particular group of people or society. Thus, culture is said to reflect a group's way of life, its customs and beliefs, its ideas, customs, achievements and art. We may also identify cultures by national origin. Normally, a culture is fixed within a given time period, which may be defined broadly, e.g. “ancient Greek culture,” or more narrowly, e.g. “1980's pop culture.”