WHY INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION?

Abstract

Intercultural communication (ICC) is communication between individuals from different cultures. Essential to ICC are two concepts: communication and culture. Politically, the need for ICC is immense. Almost every nation in the world is grappling with multiculturalism, or the political, social/cultural acceptance, promotion, or rejection of multiple cultural groups residing in the same society. Economically, the ability to communicate effectively in the global marketplace/workplace is an increasingly essential competency. Cross-cultural communication is comparing communication across cultures. International communication is the study of media’s use to facilitate communication across international borders. Historically, it focused on communication between nation-states. However, it increasingly focuses on other types of communication: political, economic, corporate, social, etc. Interethnic communication is communication between individuals from different ethnic groups. For example, M. L. Hecht, S. Ribeau, and J. K Alberts explored how African-Americans perceive communication with Whites.