Media Effects: Across and Between Cultures

Abstract

The definition of intercultural and transcultural (media) communication Intercultural and transcultural communication are defined in this entry based on a broad understanding of media effects, including processes of media selection, media usage, media reception as meaning construction, and postcommunicative effects on the cognitive (e.g., agenda-setting, knowledge acquisition, framing, cultivation), affective (e.g., stereotypes), and social levels (e.g., identity formation) but also in the domains of attitudes (e.g., prejudices) and behavior (e.g., discrimination). These diverse effects can be stimulated, reinforced, and mediated by traditional mass media and by the Internet and Web 2.0, but also by interpersonal communication. To structure the multifaceted research field, Table 1 differentiates between different levels of mediated communication by audiences in a first step and in a second step between inter and transcultural relations of involved societal segments and/or cultural groups (Gudykunst & Lee, 2002). On a global level there is transcultural communication in the form of supranational communication outside the frame of the national-territorial (Hepp & Couldry, 2009) insofar as audiences from different nations can use (via satellite television or the Inter-net) global news services such as BBC World, CNN, and centralized produced entertainment such as Hollywood films and pop music (e.g., MTV). In addition, the Internet and Web 2.0 allow users from different nations and/or cultures to select and follow global news content. Similarly, people living in different countries and within different cultures are able to communicate on a personal level via email, phone, or Skype with members of the same family or cultural group. In a national context, there are inter-and transcultural communication and information flows between members of the majority culture in the main language on the one hand and between members of various minority and/or migrant groups on the other hand. In addition, there are not only mediated and interpersonal communication and effects within these cultural segments but also between diverse cultural groups. National news in the leading media of a country and produced in the main language is used by migrant groups as well. But migrants and minority groups often use and are influenced by so-called minority or ethno media in their home languages and they use (e.g., via satellite television) news and entertainment programs from their home countries and in The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects. Patrick Rössler (Editor-in-Chief), Cynthia A. Hoffner, and Liesbet van Zoonen (Associate Editors).