Communication goes far beyond the mass means of (dis)information that we currently consume. The word communication derives from the Latin comunicare which means to share something or to share something, therefore it is an inherent characteristic of human beings and their relationships, it will precisely be the language that differentiates us from other living beings.
Since the beginning of cinema in the early twentieth century, societies have been concerned with mass communication, but with intercultural communication, only until the 60s in the United States. It was the decade of the “independence” of many countries on the African continent such as Zaire, Chad, Nigeria and the West – which needed to get out of successive crises economic crises since World War II – the need arose to use the media and communication in general to extend their capitalist policies to new markets.
Thus, thinking of communication as the possibility of intercultural exchanges was also fostered by the demands of some own minorities, such as African-Americans within the United States, as well as by the high number of immigrants and refugees who settled in the country, partly because of the wars carried out in Southeast Asia. These same wars meant for Americans contact with the cultures of countries like Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Finally, these flows should obviously be added by those of Latin American countries.
In the 70s she began to speak academically about Intercultural Communication as a specialization. However, Michael Prosser (1974) expressed concern because in the investigations of the time, the role of the media was not sufficiently taken into account. Already in the 80s, new subcategories appeared: intercultural interpersonal communication Gudykunst and Ting-Tooney (1988), transcultural communication Brislin (1986), international communication Hamelink (1994), and shared mass communication Blumler, McLeod and Rosengren (1992), which today Rodrigo Alsina (1995) would summarize in two types of intercultural communication: interpersonal and mediated.
Finally, in the 90s Thomas Fitzgerald invited us to review the concept of identity as a possible meeting place between individual and mass intercultural communication studies, since the media provide different identity models, while helping in the construction of stereotypes and prejudices about among many other issues, cultural diversity/identity.
On these social imaginaries, prejudices and stereotypes we work in the i+ Collective, with the aim of raising awareness about the multiple, diverse and constantly transforming origins of our own identities.
(Photo: YAMARÓ Project of the elParlante Collective)
Bibliography:
ALSINA, Rodrigo. (1999). Intercultural communication. Barcelona: Editorial Anthropos.
ALSINA, Rodrigo. (2001). Communication theories: areas, methods and perspectives. 1st ed. Barcelona: Autonomous University of Barcelona, 2001.
BLUMLER, Jay; MCLEOD, Jack and ROSENGREN, Karl. (1992). Comparatively speaking: communication and culture across speace and time. Publisher: Sage publications. London.
BRISLIN, Richard W. (1986). Transcultural communication. New York: Pergamon Press, (is the 4th reprint, the 1st edition is from 1981).
GUDYKUNST, William B.y TING-TOOMEY, Stella (1988). Interpersonal intercultural communication. London.
HAMELINK, Cees J. (1994). The Politics of World Communication. Publisher: Sage publications.