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1: What is Intercultural Communication
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1.1: Broadening our Horizons
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David J. Smith uses a "global village" model to simplify understanding world demographics for children, depicting the global population as 100 people. This model highlights issues such as unequal distribution of resources and disparities in education, income, and healthcare. The text emphasizes the importance of intercultural communication, describing its role in understanding diverse perspectives, especially amidst globalization and demographic shifts.
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1.2: Culture- Central to our Lives
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The page discusses the complexity of the concept of culture, particularly in the context of intercultural communication. It introduces culture not only as high culture, like arts and literature, but more importantly, as the everyday pattern of life, values, and behaviors shared by people. The text highlights that culture is learned and influenced by historical, social, political, and economic conditions.
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1.3: Communication- A Human Necessity
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Communication is vital and goes beyond mere information exchange, addressing physical, instrumental, relational, and identity needs. Effective communication fosters social bonds and community, highlighted by historic practices of excommunication. Communication is an ongoing process involving encoding and decoding messages and is often best examined through models like the transactional model.
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1.4: Intercultural Communication as an Academic Discipline
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Intercultural Communication as an academic discipline originated with Edward T. Hall's focus on practical cultural awareness for US diplomats in the 1950s. Although initially North American-centered, the field has now expanded globally with significant contributions from European, Australian, New Zealand, and non-Western scholars, widening perspectives and incorporating diverse cultural insights.