The #1 Resource for the Communication Field
Intercultural and international communication includes the study of both personal and nation-to-nation communication. In this section of our blog, we will look at international events and how they are shaped by communication. We will also discuss the barriers that make intercultural communication challenging, compare different cultures' written, verbal and body cues, and analyze how communication can shape both international and domestic policies. By understanding how certain forms of communication transcend borders--and how certain types of communication can separate us--we can get a better understanding of other cultures. We can also build policy and interpersonal skills that are more appropriate for a multicultural society, which will be increasingly important in an increasingly multicultural world bridged by the Internet, smart phones and other new media.
As powerful as gestures are, however, their meanings are not always universal. Gestures often remain the same across cultures but carry dramatically different meanings and connotations. Use the following infographic to learn more about common American hand gestures and their meanings in different parts of the world. Read more »
A new study from the University of Portsmouth in Great Britain provides insight into the differences between the ways in which native English speakers and native Polish speakers use language during day-to-day interactions with family. The researchers hope their findings will lead to a greater understanding between members of the two groups and reduce misunderstandings based on cultural differences. Read more »
It has long been theorized that concepts could not be fully understood by a members of a culture unless that culture had a word for them. However, according to new research published in the American Psychological Association journal Emotion, it appears that people do not need to be able to name an emotion in order to understand it. Read more »
Facial expressions are one of the most powerful languages, especially in terms of communicating emotion. Culture plays a large role in how people interpret facial expressions. Because of this, researcher Rachael E. Jack, PhD, of the University of Glasgow set out to document how different cultures interpret facial expressions. The study, which was also Jack’s thesis, was published in the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Journal of Experimental Psychology. Read more »
The internet can be accessed from all over the world, but that does not mean that users in different countries are accessing the internet in exactly the same way. Even under the extremely broad umbrella of social media, different users participate in a variety of activities. Read more »
Arab television networks, such as Al Jazeera, have been long thought to only be developing anti-American sentiments among viewers, but researchers of a new study at Ohio State University say this thinking is too simplistic. Read more »
A study in PLoS ONE by researchers from the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC and Peking University examines how White Americans and Chinese people in China respond to pictures of their boss, suggesting cultural differences in our responses to authority figures. Read more »
The accent someone talks in plays a crucial role in the way we judge this person, psychologists of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) found out recently. "The accent is much more important than the way a person looks", Dr. Tamara Rakic sums up one of the key findings of the study, which has just been published in the online edition of the "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology". Read more »
In the United States, friends often share intimate details of their lives and problems. However, such self-disclosure is much less common in Japan. A new study by an American researcher living in Japan finds that this may be because of the different social systems in the two countries, and in particular the extent to which there are opportunities to make new friends. Read more »
Want to know how a Japanese person is feeling? Pay attention to the tone of his voice, not his face. That’s what other Japanese people would do, anyway. A new study examines how Dutch and Japanese people assess others’ emotions and finds that Dutch people pay attention to the facial expression more than Japanese people do. Read more »