Welcome to the Estlow Center!  

Scholarship in intercultural communication, or the study of how people from differing cultural backgrounds endeavor to communicate with one another, is undergoing significant change at the moment. The field itself had its beginnings in the Cold War era, as businesses of the west sought to expand their markets and found that western professionals were ill-equipped to interact with those from the East. Early research in this area therefore sought to “uncover the secrets of entire national cultures” (Hofstede, 1980, 44) and to describe cross-cultural business successes and failures according to how sensitive westerners were to these presumed cultural differences (Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars, 1993, 1997). Some of this kind of work continues today, as scholars attempt to measure the level of increased knowledge of dress, customs, and language skills presumed necessary for what is termed intercultural communication competence (Hilton, 2007).

As internationalization has come to permeate every aspect of most peoples' daily lives, however, and as cultural anthropology and related fields have questioned such static approaches to “culture” and “communication,” this field has begun to explore new questions. Some of these include: how do we rethink “culture” and move beyond ethnocentric assumptions (Kim and Hubbard, 2007; Levine, Park, & Kim, 2007; Rathje, 2007)? How do various cultures interact within a host culture to sustain multiple identities (Geoffroy, 2007)? And whereas some research continues to focus on how individuals attain intercultural communication competence, others have queried how the theories might be informed by attention to mutual listening (Starosta& Chen, 2005). What remains consistent is an underlying belief on the part of those engaged in intercultural communication projects: that interventions between persons of differing cultural backgrounds can “help to reduce conflict, promote cooperation, and increase intercultural understanding” (O'Regan& MacDonald, 2007, 268).

This current project aims to contribute to this scholarship by bringing into consideration the emergence of digital media, specifically as it is coming to play a role in cross-cultural interactions among young people who are culturally sensitive and hail from diverse geographic, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. Some researchers have begun to look at the opportunities for intercultural communication available in the online realm, attempting to measure how online interactions might result in increased cultural sensitivity and exploring how argumentation patterns offline translate to similar online patterns (Chen, 1998; Ellis &Maoz, 2007). Questions remain, however, including one that is key to this project: how do people with mindsets of equality and mutuality exhibit these characteristics through mutual listening online, and how do they experience these qualities when interacting with others online?

Several online sites now exist that bring together young people from differing cultural backgrounds around issues of common concern. Our aim, therefore, is to empirically analyze how students involved in these online venues exhibit and self-reflexively interpret both their own and others' processes of mutuality, equality, and compassionate listening when communicating with those they believe come from cultural perspectives that differ from their own. In addition to the analysis of online interactions, therefore, we propose to conduct in-depth interviews with participants, analyzing and triangulating findings through collaborative processes that involve researchers from various cultural backgrounds.

Thanks to a two-year external gift and a matching Dean's Fund grant that supports tuition, the university currently has two outstanding students from Iran who are enrolled in the complementary programs of International Intercultural Communication and Digital Media Studies for the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 academic years. In the winter quarter of 2008, both students participated in an online collaborative effort that brought together 22 students from Iran and from the University of Denver. LoosinehMarkarianSengali translated the Iranian students' entries from Farsi to English and offered translations from English to Farsi, while MorehshinAllahyari worked on developing an online platform to facilitate ongoing interaction. During the spring quarter, we are identifying additional online venues in which Iranian and U.S. students interact, and we are arranging a similar project that brings students together from US and Iranian universities. Students worked together to create a collaborative blog that highlighted how stories of intercultural conflict are told in their own media contexts located at http://tolerantworld.com.

This project builds on the University of Denver's longstanding connection with intercultural communication. Edward T. Hall (1976), one of the founders of this field, received his BA from the University of Denver in 1936, and returned to chair the university's anthropology department from 1946-1948. Whereas the field has moved beyond Hall's initial analyses, intercultural communication has remained an important part of the scholarly and teaching life of the University of Denver (see Botta, Thompson, Munoz & Vargas, 2007; Demont-Heinrich, 2007, 2005; Thompson, Gomez, & Suarez Toro, 2005). This is visible most recently through the Marsico initiative that has sent more students into international educational experiences than perhaps any other undergraduate institution in the U.S., through the programs of the International House, and through the establishment of the International and Intercultural Communication program, which offers a joint Masters degree through the Graduate School of International Studies and the Departments of Mass Communication and Human Communication.

Rerences:

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Botta, Renee, Margaret Thompson, Quesada Munoz, & Evelyn Vargas Carmona. (2007, May). Western body ideals, social comparisons, and mother-daughter conversations in Costa Rica. Paper presented to the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco, CA.

Chen, Guo-Ming (1998). Intercultural communication via E-mail debate. The Edge: The E-Journal of Intercultural Relations , Fall Vol. 1 (4). Available online: http://cms.interculturalu.com/theedge/v1i4Fall1998/f98chen.htm

Demont-Heinrich, Christof. (2007). Globalization, language, and the tongue-tied American. Journal of Communication Inquiry 31(2): 98-117.

Demont-Heinrich, Christof. (2005). Language and national identity in the era of globalization: The case of English in Switzerland. Journal of Communication Inquiry 29(1): 66-84.

Ellis, Donald and IfatMaoz. (2007). Online argument between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Human Communication Research 33(3): 291-309.

Geoffroy, Christine. (2007). ‘Mobile' contexts/'immobile' cultures. Language & Intercultural Interaction 7(4): 279-290.

Hampden-Turner, Charles, and FonsTrompenaars. (1997). Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business . McGraw-Hill.

Hilton, Genevieve. (2007). Becoming culturally fluent. Communication World 24(6): 34-35.

Hoffman, Edgar. (2007). The image of Europe as Advertised in Russia. Journal of Intercultural Communication 15.

Hofstede, Geert. (1980). Culture's Consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Hampden-Turner, Charles, and FonsTrompenaars. (1993). The Seven Cultures of Capitalism: Value Systems for Creating Wealth in the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany, France, Sweden, and the Netherlands. London: Piatkus.

Kim, Min-Sun and Amy Ebesu Hubbard. (2007). Intercultural communication in the global village: How to understand ‘the Other.' Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 36(3): 223-235.

Timothy Levine, Hee Sun Park, & Rachel Kim. (2007). Some conceptual and theoretical challenges for cross-cultural communication research in the 21 st century. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 36(3): 205-221.

O'Regan, John P. & Malcolm N. MacDonald. Cultural relativism and the discourse of intercultural communication: Aporias of Praxis in the intercultural public sphere. _Language & Intercultural Communication 7(4): 267-278.

Rathje, Stefanie. (2007). Intercultural competence: The status and future of a controversial concept. Language & Intercultural Communication 7(4): 254-266.

Starosta, William and Guo-Ming Chen. (2005). Intercultural listening: Collected reflections, collated refractions. International & Intercultural Communication Annual 28: 274-285.

Thompson, Margaret E., KaterinaAnfossi Gomez, Maria Suarez Toro. (2005). Internet audience perceptions of Feminist Radio Endeavor (FIRE). Feminist Media Studies 5(2): 215-236.