DIVERSITY AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION DRAFT

BABR 3-1 CULTURE, COMMUNICATION, CONTENT AND POWER 1. How do definitions of culture influence people's perspectives on intercultural communication? We need to specify our approach to intercultural communication. We want to apprehend that different human beings inspect quite one-of-a-kind perspectives. The robust feel of group identity is produced with the aid of culture. On the other hand, it can additionally lead to ethnocentrism, Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view one's very own culture as most fulfilling to others. Enculturation is a foremost element here. Being always instructed that you live in the worst united states in the world or that the Western nations are exquisite can lead to emotions of cultural inferiority. This includes the feeling that your way of lifestyles is worse than those of different nations, or the faith that your values are subpar to those of different ethnic groups. This is mainly manifested amongst children. It can additionally end result from a lack of contact with other cultures. If an person is solely exposed to a Western orientation, they may develop a sense of entitlement. Moreover, they may also tend to view the rest of the world from a lower perspective. Furthermore, this inability can create outlooks of ethnocentrism. Obviously, it is natural to feel at ease with human beings who are like you. It's very convenient to have interaction with humans who have same social norms and protocols. You recognize what to expect. In turn, it is normally convenient to communicate. On different other hand, it's also normal to experience uneasy when confronted with new social values, beliefs, and behaviors. Certainly, you do not know what to expect. In turn, communication can be very difficult. On the contrary, to evaluate those differences negatively is a hindrance to an effective intercultural communication. Yes, they vary from our expectations but we shouldn't view then in an ethnocentric outlook Every day we encounter an overwhelming amount of mixed motivations. We must carefully process them. We must also assign proper meanings. This process of organizing and evaluating stimuli is called perception. The capacity of stimuli is too large for us to pay attention to everything. In turn, we select only what is considered relevant. After determining, the next step is evaluation. The university library and media outlets, must give proper information to the structure before it can be interpreted.

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A Theoretical Orientation for the, 2004

In order to explain, what is or what could be the culture of diversity it needs to decide for a frame of reference, which has significance and relevance for the problem we are talking about. This is a very simple requirement, otherwise it would not be possible, at least not politically sincere to argue for certain measures how to develop or how to establish culture of diversity -not to speak about the necessity to answer honestly the question, why is there a need of cultivating diversity? Obviously the term of diversity becomes a paradigmatic position in understanding and explaining the problem of social togetherness, it becomes even a cultural and political term and gets used in contexts of conceptualizing new horizons of societies. There is no other most enlightening concept of reference than the one of communication. Because communication is the instance to unify difference and to make diversity understood as a challenge of culture.

Culture is defined in various ways. It is the patterns of learned and shared behavior and beliefs of a particular social, ethnic or age group (Unknown, n.d.). It is the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group (Merriam Webster, n.d.). "Most social scientists today view culture as consisting primarily of the symbolic, ideational, and intangible aspects of human societies. The essence of a culture is not its artifacts, tools, or other tangible cultural elements but how the members of the group interpret, use, and perceive them. It is the values, symbols, interpretations, and perspectives that distinguish one people from another in modernized societies; it is not material objects and other tangible aspects of human societies. People within a culture usually interpret the meaning of symbols, artifacts, and behaviors in the same or in similar ways" (Banks, n.d.). "Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another" (Hofstede, n.d.). "By culture we mean all those historically created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational, and non-rational, which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behavior of men" (Kluckhohn, n.d.). Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society." As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, art. norms of behavior, such as law and morality, and systems of belief (Boston University, n.d.). And in general, the word culture is considered as an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups (Unknown, Wikipedia, n.d.). Polytechnic University of the Philippines Intercultural Communication Every individual grew up following the culture he/she knew of. It usually depends on the group you belong to-your social, ethnic or your age group. One's culture speaks of one's identity. The views, beliefs, opinions, and the way of living of a person is greatly affected by his/her culture. More often than not, the difference in culture can cause division and conflict among groups of people. People tend to misunderstand, misjudge or misinterpret another person because he/she believes in something that's different from what he/she is used to. Intercultural communication aims to minimize if not stop the conflict among different cultures. It speaks of the importance of respect in perceiving another culture and seeing communication as the key to a more understanding society. As we all are raised differently by different people with a different set of background, understanding and respect among one another is very important in order to live in peace with the people around us. As people understand what culture is and as they begin to recognize that one's culture can be different from another, then people will begin to realize that it is possible to live in harmony with the rest of the world as long as you learn to respect the beliefs of other people without imposing yours on them. Cultural values refer to the worldview of a cultural group and its set of deeply held beliefs. They reflect the shared perception of a group of what ought to be and what not is (Unknown, SlideShare, n.d.). Language is a part of one's culture and it plays a big role in communication. Communication, on the other hand, is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired and transformed (Unknown, SlideShare, n.d.). It is necessary in order to have understanding between people, among a certain group or even across different groups. In communication, there has to be a message sent by the sender to its receiver and this has to be both ways for it to be effective, otherwise, the message may be misunderstood thus a miscommunication may occur. As people from a certain culture may be using a language that is completely different from that of another group, communication can be a barrier and it may cause major misunderstandings between or among the groups. Polytechnic University of the Philippines Intercultural Communication In communication interactions, power is usually used and it plays a very important role but is not as obvious as it seems. One of the techniques that people use to assert power in their communication interaction is the dominant communication system. In here, privileged people or the people in authority usually dominate the other. One example is when people with a higher standing in society usually impose their beliefs on the rest of the group. However, the inferior group could also resist the power of the dominant group through political and legal means or if they make use of boycotts, strikes and sit-ins. We all know that culture is a learned pattern of beliefs and it is shared by the individuals that belong to a group. The culture of one group may vary from that of the other group. This may cause conflict between or among groups but it can still be avoided or stopped through intercultural communication. As the culture of different groups vary, so are the people within every culture. Even when beliefs are shared by the people in the group, there are still other factors that could influence a person to believe something else. And the beliefs or values of a person and whether he/she will stick to what he/she used to believe in or not is a choice every individual can make. As we all know, there is no identical individual and with this, cultural struggles within a culture may still occur. Thus, culture can be a contested zone or site of struggle.

Cultural Diversity Samuel A. Obua, 2024

Culture can be referred to as the human pattern of activities in a social group and community that symbolizes structures important to activity, such as laws, social standards, customs, and traditions, which are natural exhibits of the element of culture. According to UNESCO, culture has four pillars (UNESCO,2017).

We all have an internal list of those we still don't understand, let alone appreciate. We all have biases, even prejudices, toward specific groups. We need to try thinking about their hopes and fears in relating to people of a group different from their own. Fears usually include being judged, miscommunication, and patronising or hurting others unintentionally; hopes are usually the possibility of dialogue, learning something new, developing friendships, and understanding different points of view. At any moment that we are dealing with people different from ourselves, the likelihood is that they carry a similar list of hopes and fears in their back pocket. 11 We all communicate with others all the time – in our homes, in our workplaces, in the groups we belong to, and in any community. No matter how well we think we understand each other, communication is hard. " Culture " is often at the root of communication challenges. Our culture influences how we approach problems, and how we participate in groups and in communities. When we participate in groups we are often surprised at how differently people approach their work together. Intercultural communication includes diversity and global communication within different cultures Culture is a complex concept, with many different definitions. But, simply put, " culture " refers to a group or community with which we share common experiences that shape the way we understand the world. It includes groups that we are born into, such as gender, race, or national origin. It also includes groups we join or become part of. We can acquire a new culture by moving to a new region, by a change in our economic status, or by becoming disabled. When we think of culture this broadly, we realise we all belong to many cultures at once. In a world as complex as ours, each of us is shaped by many factors, and culture is one of the powerful forces that acts on us. Culture is central to what we see, how we make sense of what we see, and how we express ourselves. As people from different cultural groups take on the exciting challenge of working together, cultural values sometimes conflict. We can misunderstand each other, and