Media Studies Chapter 3 Communication And Culture Outcomes Define And Explain Culture And Its

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Chapter 3

Communication and Culture

CHAPTER OUTCOMES

• Define and explain culture and its impact on your communication

• Delineate seven ways that cultural variables affect communication

LECTURE NOTES

• Understanding Culture examines how culture is learned, how it affects our

communication, and why learning how to communicate among different cultures is so

important.

ƒ Culture is a learned system of thought and behavior that typifies a large group of people,

including their beliefs, values, and practices.

ƒ Culture applies to any broadly shared group identity, not simply a person’s nationality.

ƒ Culture Is Learned

Culture is learned from parents, peer groups, teachers, and media.

These processes shape our worldview, or how we interpret the world and the people in

it.

Culture includes nonverbal, unconscious behaviors and verbal language.

ƒ Culture Affects Communication

ƒ Intercultural Communication Matters

Intercultural communication is communication between people from different

cultures who have different worldviews that may lead to different interpretations and

expectations.

Intercultural communication is important for a number of reasons, including:

Ɠ Diversity: because we live in a diverse society, we must be able to communicate

interculturally in order to understand others.

• Communication and Cultural Variations examines the seven major communication

variations across cultures in order to help explain the roots of communication differences.

ƒ High- and Low-Context Cultures

ƒ Collectivist and Individualist Orientations

Collectivist cultures see themselves primarily as members of a group and

communicate from that perspective, emphasizing cooperation, group harmony, group

ƒ Comfort with Uncertainty

Some cultures want to practice uncertainty avoidance, which is the reduction of

uncertainty and risk in an interaction and involves following rules and valuing honesty

and stability. Cultures with high uncertainty avoidance include Portugal, Greece, Peru,

and Japan.

Cultures with lower uncertainty avoidance have greater tolerance for ambiguity and

risk; they include countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, and the United States.

ƒ Masculine and Feminine Orientations

The masculinity or femininity of a culture refers to how a culture values and reflects

characteristics that are traditionally (or stereotypically) associated with one sex or the

other.

Masculine culture (achievement culture) places a higher value on assertiveness,

ƒ Approaches to Power Distance

Power distance is the way in which power and status are divided among individuals.

High power distance cultures have a strong hierarchy based on class, birth order, job

ƒ Time Orientation

Time orientation is how cultures communicate with and about time.

Monochronic cultures treat time as a limited resource, or a commodity that can be

saved or wasted, and value schedules. Examples include the United States, Germany,

Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Polychronic cultures are comfortable dealing with multiple people and tasks at the

same time, with fewer adherences to schedules. Examples include Mexico, India, and

the Philippines.

ƒ Value of Emotional Expression

Some cultures see expression of emotions as a weakness; others see it as a strength.

Collectivist cultures often use hyperbole, or vivid, colorful language with emotional

intensity, to express emotion.

Individualistic cultures tend toward understatement, which downplays emotion and

may include euphemisms.

• Understanding Group Affiliations examines co-cultural communication, social identity

theory, and intergroup communication.

ƒ Everyone has multiple group memberships in their own identity.

ƒ Co-cultural Communication

Co-cultures are groups that share some of the general culture but have some distinct

Gender refers to behavioral and cultural traits assigned to sex. There are particular

ways of speaking that are culturally seen more with each gender.

A person’s “membership” in a particular group does not mean that he or she will

automatically have that group’s communicative characteristics. People need to be able

to adapt to others and to the communicative context.

ƒ Social Identity and Intergroup Communication

ƒ Social identity theory states that people have a personal identity (sense of your unique

individual personality) and a social identity (part of self-concept that comes from your

group memberships).

ƒ Intergroup communication looks at how communication and relationships within

groups affect relationships.

Our identification and communication shifts depending on what group membership is

made salient.

A person may not identify equally with all group memberships.

Other people will treat you based on the group they think you belong to, which may

affect you in various ways.

• Intercultural Communication Challenges explores three pressing intercultural challenges

ƒ Anxiety

People often become anxious about how they are perceived when communicating with

ƒ Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the belief in the superiority of one’s cultural group and the tendency

to view another culture through the lens of your own culture.

Ethnocentrism is very different from cultural or ethnic pride.

ƒ Discrimination

Discrimination is behavior toward a person or group based only on their membership

in a particular group, class, or category.

• Improving Intercultural Communication considers some important points to help us

communicate with people from other generations, faiths, ethnicities, cultures, and so on.

ƒ Improving intercultural communication, or intercultural training, generally focuses on

three areas:

Changing thinking (cognition)

Changing feelings (affect)

Changing behavior

ƒ Be Mindful

ƒ Desire to Learn

The willingness to learn is an important component of becoming a competent

intercultural communicator.

It includes asking respectful and earnest questions and experiencing other cultures in

whatever way you are able.

ƒ Overcome Intergroup Biases

ƒ Accommodate Appropriately

Accommodation is when you adjust your verbal and nonverbal language and

behaviors to another; convergence happens when speakers shift toward each other’s

ƒ Practice Your Skills by doing the following:

Listen effectively, remembering you can’t be mindful unless you listen to what others

say.

CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Note: Throughout this chapter, students (and sometimes instructors) will look to students who

are perceived as “other” to share their experiences, especially in a classroom or at a university

1. What are some parts of your culture? How did you learn them?

2. What are some ways that you see time orientation at work in your culture? What about

power distance?

• Ask students about their schedules. Ask how they would react if they came to class the

3. What are some of the different co-cultures that you belong to? How do those co-cultures

shape who you are?

• Talk to students about different co-cultures such as gender, race, and sexuality.

If students are reluctant to talk about those issues, start with something a bit safer, such

4. How does cultural pride differ from ethnocentrism?

• This is a tough one to talk about in the classroom. However, if you take time to do it

carefully, it can be a valuable discussion. You could start by talking about school

5. How do you see high and low context at work in your everyday life?

• An example of low context would be the syllabus—very direct and explicit

instructions.

PERSONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

1. Touring Nacirema

Have students think of a “normal” thing that they do every day, for example, putting in

contact lenses. Have them think about it as a strange cultural ritual. How would it be

described? Have students write their descriptions of the ritual in as much objective detail

2. Boys Will Be Boys

For this assignment, have students observe some public area on their campus (the

cafeteria, library, a study area, a workout area or a game room are some ideas). Have

them observe the space on at least two separate occasions, 1 hour each. They should take

detailed notes on the differences (or lack thereof) in behavior between males and females

on campus. For example, do women sit in chairs the same way that men do? Do they

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

1. How to Live Here

Goal: To help students understand the nuanced aspects of their own cultural lives

Time Required: 15–20 minutes

Materials: Paper and writing implements for students

Directions:

1. Give students 10 minutes to write rules for their own culture. Their rules should

2. After 10 minutes, have students share their rules with each other.

Debriefing: Discuss the rules with the students. If students didn’t reach “deep,” help them

develop their rules further. For example, when determining what people talk about, ask

them about different situations—what do they talk about with strangers? Friends?

Romantic partners? Ask students, how did you “learn” these cultural rules—explicitly or

implicitly? By whom?

2. When Are You Late?

Goal: To teach students the concept of time orientation

Time Required: 15 minutes

Materials:

1. Chalkboard or other writing surface visible to the class

2. Paper and writing implements for students

Directions:

1. Have students take out a blank piece of paper. Ask them what the latest acceptable

time is for arriving at the following events:

• Religious services

2. Give students 5–7 minutes to complete their answers. Then ask students to share

their answers with the rest of the class. Write some of their answers next to each of

the described events.

Debriefing: Discuss answers with the students. Ask them to discuss why they could be

3. Foods, Fairs, and Festivals

Goal: To teach students to think critically about how cultures are portrayed

Time Required: 30–40 minutes

Materials: Pictures, videos, and/or actual artifacts from multiple cultures for students to

use as samples

Directions:

1. Ask students individually what they think of when they think of cultures other than

2. Have students select pictures, videos, and/or artifacts from samples you supply to

help them illustrate their ideas about other cultures.

3. Ask students what they think people from other cultures would use to suggest what

people in the students’ cultures are like when presented with this same activity.

4. Cultural Outsiders

Goal: To discover how uncertainty avoidance is achieved

Time Required: 50 minutes

Materials: Name tags for half the class

Directions:

1. Send half of the students out of the class to wait in another location.

2. Give the name tags to the remaining students and have them wear them in a visible

place. (Note: Students do not need to write their names on the tags; the tags provide

a way to distinguish one group from the other.) Give these students the following

directions:

You are members of a culture that will be visited by exchange students (the other

3. Have the students ask any clarifying questions; be sure to tell them they are not to

4. After giving these instructions, have students come together. Explain to the students

who were outside the room that they are exchange students who have come to

another country and they are to make friends. Send the “exchange students” in to

“make friends.”

5. Observe the students as they play the game. Encourage the “natives” to enact their

culture (nonverbal signals of “you can do it!” usually do the trick). Within about

5 minutes, you will see the cultures start to “separate” —the exchange students will

be in one area and the natives will be in another. At this point, call “stop” and have

the student’s freeze and notice where they (and others) are.

Debriefing: Gather students together and ask the exchange students how they felt. Then

ask the natives to describe their cultural norms. Ask students what kinds of cultural

5. What Does That Movie Say About You?

Goal: To understand how popular culture affects understandings of culture

Time Required: 15 minutes

Materials: Computer with Internet connection and projector (optional)

Directions:

1. Have students write down the name of their favorite movie.

2. Ask students “If this movie was a representation of your culture, what would it say

about your culture?” Encourage students not to think too literally (e.g., the movie

Ironman would not just suggest we could all wear iron super suits), but have them

think more deeply. How do people in that movie act? Talk? What do they talk about?

Who do they talk to? Which co-cultural groups are represented? What do those

cultural groups do?

Debriefing: Discuss how popular culture influences how we think about our own culture

and “other” cultures. What do these films say about people who are white? People who

aren’t? Men? Women? People of different sexual orientations? People of different

abilities?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. How does culture affect communication?

2. How does mobility affect intercultural communication?

3. What cultural values are carried by the media you interact with?

MEDIA

Children of a Lesser God (Paramount Pictures, 1986)

In this film, a speech teacher at a school for the deaf falls in love with one of the pupils.

Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) (Arau Films International,

1992)

This film (which does have some nudity) explores one aspect of Mexican culture in the

1800s. Tita and Pedro fall in love, but they are not allowed to marry. To stay close to Tita,

Race—The Power of an Illusion (California Newsreel, 2003)

This three-part series (56 minutes each) produced by PBS examines idea of race as a

social construction and not a biological argument. It looks at past and present aspects of

The Wedding Banquet (Ang Lee Productions, 1993)

Wei-Tung and Simon are a gay couple living in New York. Wei-Tung’s traditional

Chinese parents live in China, unaware of their son’s sexual preference. Wei-Tung