UNIT II: COMMUNICATION AND GLOBALIZATION

Learning Outcomes
At the end of the unit, you are expected to:
1. explain fully how cultural and global issues affect communication;
2. appreciate the impact of communication on society and the world; and
3. suggest solutions to communication barriers in the global context.

Lesson1: Globalization
The way we live now has certainly changed because of many factors. People can move freely
from one country to another; we can communicate with people in any part of the world; we can move
products quickly; and people can instantly get information anytime at any place. All these are possible
because we thrive in a globalized world. Ledbetter (2015) states that globalization represents a new, post-
traditional order, forging new identities, institutions and ways of life. It is ‘the way we live now’, in a
worldwide network of social relations, seemingly unfettered by the constraints of geography.
Globalization has increased the economic, political, and cultural interdependence of diverse
cultures. Globalization is related to two other concepts—diversity and glocalization. Diversity is the
recognition and valuing of difference, encompassing such factors as age, ethnicity, ability, religion,
education, marital status, sexual orientation, and income. Glocalization is a newer concept describing how
globalization affects and merges with local interests and environments.
Garret (2000) mentions that the causes of globalization are technological innovations lowering
the costs of moving goods and more notably information around the world, growing international
economic activity, and the liberalization of foreign economic policies.
Economic Globalization
Nations are economically interdependent. For instance, Filipino workers are found across the
globe, and their income helps boost our economy. In order to solve issues on unemployment, poverty,
unending consumerism, economic exploitation of workers in developing and developed countries, and
deterioration of environment, communication between and among countries is essential.
In addition, the economic welfare of member nations of international organizations such as WTO,
World Bank and IMF may also be controlled by these organizations. The growth of multinational
companies such as Coca Cola, Nike, and McDonald’s make products available in almost all countries.
Globalization of Government Policies
Government policies of developed countries are also globalized. Examples of these are
privatization of state enterprises and trade liberalization (removal of world tariffs) which decreased trade
barriers. Liberalization of ‘capital accounts’ allow people to invest overseas, and foreign funds can be
invested in the home country.
Globalization of Culture
Some popular culture have been globalized like rock music, television dramas and programs,
movies, fast food, dance, and sports.
Language is part of culture, and the English language has become the “world language” or the
lingua franca of the modern world. As English dominates, second language and foreign speakers of
English have developed their own varieties of English. The study of World Englishes emerged.
 In the age of globalization, people are likely to be working and living with people from all over
the world. Globalization has resulted in diversity in the workplace, hence the need for effective
communication skills in a diverse work environment.

Globalization and Its Impacts on Business Communication

Language is a part of culture and is closely bound to the principles, rules and values which are
formed in the given society.

The Impact of globalization on Cross-Cultural Communication

As society becomes more globally connected the ability to communicate across cultural
boundaries has gained increasing prominence. Global businesses must understand how to communicate
with employees and customers from different cultures in order to fulfil the organization’s mission and
build value for stakeholders. The use of technology has had a profound impact on how businesses
communicate globally and market their products and services. However, with the advancements in
technology, organizations must still be discerning of the culture nuisances that can potentially present
obstacles in trying to increase profits and market share. According to Genevieve Hilton, “cultural
proficiency doesn't mean memorizing every cultural nuance of every market. It's knowing when to listen,
when to ask for help, and when—finally—to speak”

Culture can affect how we perceive the actions of others. Our perception of others directly affects
how we interpret their behavior and actions. Effective cross-culture communication requires that we base
our perceptions on facts and not merely on personal biases and prejudices. Successful business leaders
must be able to balance organizational objectives with external global challenges. As organizations
become more interconnected the role of leaders in managing global teams is becoming increasingly
important. Being able to navigate through different cultural nuances is a key skill for global leaders
( Matthews and Thakkar, 2012).
Cross-cultural Communication
Cross-cultural communication refers to the communication between people who have differences
in any one of the following: styles of working, age, nationality, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation,
etc. Cross-cultural communication can also refer to the attempts that are made to exchange, negotiate and
mediate cultural differences by means of language, gestures and body language. It is how people
belonging to different cultures communicate with each other.
Each individual can practice culture at varying levels. There is the culture of the community he
grows up in, there is work culture at his workplace and other cultures to which one becomes an active
participant or slowly withdraws from.  An individual is constantly confronted with the clash between his
original culture and the majority culture that he is exposed to daily. Cultural clashes occur as a result of
individuals believing their culture is better than others.
Cross-cultural communication is necessary in order to avoid misunderstandings that can lead to
conflicts between individuals or groups. Cross-cultural communication creates a feeling of trust and
enables cooperation. The focus is on providing the right response rather than providing the right message.
Matthews and Thakkar, (2012) suggest a cross-cultural model of communication in organizations
or in the workplace. Their model (see Figure 3) shows that communication barriers can be eliminated for
companies to be successful.
 Figure 3. Cross Culture Communication Model

Successful cross-cultural communication creates a dialogue, a continuous transfer of information.

This exchange of information addresses our assumptions and clarifies points we do not understand. It also
provides the opportunity for us to ask questions and confirm the information that was received. Having a
dialogue reduces conflict because cultural misunderstandings can be dealt with when they arise. The
dialogue only occurs when both parties agree to share information and ensure that the transfer of
information is not blocked.

Questions for Discussion

1. Is globalized culture a threat to local cultural differences?

2. Through the integration of economies, governmental policies, values and cultures, has
globalization made the world homogenous?

3. Why might a person not identify fully with members of his or her own culture until becoming
an immigrant in another country?

4. How does globalization influence business communication?

ASSESSMENT 1
How close is the world to me?
Students develop an understanding of the links they have that extend beyond local and national
boundaries.
Create an image showing your connections to the rest of the world based on the music you listen to, using
the following questions.
What's the origin of the most recent song or piece of music that you listened to? (Identify the nationality
of the creator of the music as well as the tradition to which it belongs.)
What technology do you most commonly use to listen to music?
Where is the technology made? Where is the company that owns the technology based? How have you
obtained music - online purchases or physically bought from retail outlets?
Collect class data in relation to this and then make generalisations about any patterns in the data. Do
certain countries predominate in terms of musical choices and/or owning or making technology? Which
types of technology are most commonly used? Is online or physical shopping more popular?
Create a visual representation of your generalisations (e.g. using graphs or a mapping tool such as
uMapper).
Use your visual generalisation to discuss: What is globalisation?
Think of a current event featuring in headlines around the world. (Hint: politics, music, sport, film,
celebrity culture, or disaster. Twitter might provide some ideas).
Write about the event using some of the following prompts: national identity, language, design, place of
manufacture, origin of natural resources, cultural traditions, use of technology, history etc.

ASSESSMENT
Select a culture that seems substantially different from your native culture. Using the Internet,
research the values and norms that are common in that other culture. In a short essay, describe the values
and norms of that culture and discuss how you would use that knowledge to communicate effectively
with people of that cultural background.

UNIT III. LOCAL, GLOBAL, AND GLOCAL COMMUNICATION

IN MULTICULTURAL SETTINGS

Objectives
At the end of the unit, you are expected to:
1. determine culturally appropriate terms and images that are sensitive to gender, race, and class;
and
2. adopt cultural and intercultural awareness and sensitivity in the communication of ideas.
Lesson1: Local, global, and glocal communication
Local Communication
Communities develop their own ways of communicating with other people. They have their own
ways of exchanging information, conversation, ideas or messages with other people using words, signs,
writings, verbal or non-verbal means of communication. In fact they use their own terms depending on
their environment and the social context. People identify themselves with a group or community with
members of the same language and culture.

Global Communication
As people are becoming more and more interdependent and technology has greatly advanced,
they engage in global communication. Communication globalizes but it also remains local. (Mattelart,
2014).
Global communication today is a crucial source for our perceptions of the world and for our sense
of belonging to this world.
Global communication is a key player in the global economy.
Global communication is essential to global politics.
Military operations depend upon global communication.
Global communication is a carrier of cultural expressions.

Glocal Communication
According to Mattelart (2014), communication globalizes but it also remains local. Global and
local belong together. We do not live in the globe but in specific locations. However cosmopolitan one
may be, one’s identity is primarily defined by “locality”: the locus of birth, family, language, jokes.
Attachment to the place where you experience the greatest cultural “comfort” – often referred to as
cultural proximity – is an essential experience. We are global and local citizens and our communication
could possibly best be termed “glocal”. This notion connects the global (e.g. a product for global
marketing) with the local (e.g. local tastes and experiences).
Glocalization in business is communication which conveys and imparts the essential core
message and the spirit of a brand globally but can simultaneously integrate at the local level the
particularities of regional markets.

Lesson 2: Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication is the exchange of information between individuals who are unalike
culturally. Intercultural communication is essential because of our increasing exposure to people of other
cultures and co-cultures. More people are exposed to different global cultures through vacation travel,
transnational jobs, international conflicts, military and humanitarian service, and the presence of
immigrants, refugees and new citizens. Intercultural communication includes better understanding of
cultural and co-cultural friends and enemies (Pearson, Nelson, Titsworth, & Harter, 2011). Being an
effective communicator means interacting positively with people from various racial, ethnic, and cultural
backgrounds. You can communicate better with people from other cultures if you know something about
theirs.
According to science, each person is genetically unique. This uniqueness becomes even more
heightened because of individual experiences. Family background, religious affiliations, educational
achievements, sociocultural forces, economic conditions, emotional states and other factors shape human
identities. Because of this, no two people can ever be exactly the same.
 Culture is: The ever-changing values, traditions, social and political relationships, and worldview
created and shared by a group of people bound together by a combination of factors (which can include a
common history, geographic location, language, social class, and/or religion)
What are some intercultural communication problems?
Intercultural communication is subject to all the problems that can hamper effective interpersonal
communication.

Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the belief that your own group or culture is superior to all other groups or
cultures. In ethnocentrism, you use your own culture as the measure that others are expected to meet.
Cultural relativism is the belief that another culture should be judged by its own context rather than
measured against your culture. To communicate effectively with people from different cultures, you need
to accept people whose values and norms may be different from your own. An effective communicator
avoids ethnocentrism and embraces cultural relativism.

Stereotyping
Ethnocentrism is not the only perceptual trap you can fall into in intercultural communication.
Equally dangerous is the tendency to stereotype people in cultural and co-cultural groups. Rogers and
Steinfatt (1999) define a stereotype as “a generalization about some group of people that oversimplifies
their culture.” The stereotype of a gay male is an effeminate fellow, but gay people are just as likely to be
truckers, physicians and athletes.
Sometimes stereotyping occurs because people have had a negative or positive experience with a
person from another culture or co-culture. In one investigation, people stereotyped black people after only
one observation of a negative behaviour. In another, simply hearing about an alleged crime was sufficient
to stereotype blacks (Henderson-King & Nisbett, 1996). Clearly, people are willing to stereotype with
little evidence.
Prejudice
While ethnocentrism is thinking your culture is better than others and stereotyping is acting as if
all members of a group are alike, prejudice is a negative attitude toward a group of people just because
they are who they are. Often the groups on the receiving end of prejudice are marginalized groups—
people in poverty, people of color, people who speak a language other than English, gay men and lesbian
women—but sometimes the group receiving the prejudice is actually larger than the group that exhibits
the prejudice.

Characteristics of Different Cultures

1. Individualistic Versus Collectivist Culture
Individualistic cultures value individual freedom, choice, uniqueness, and independence. These
cultures place “I” before “we” and value competition over cooperation, private property over public or
state owned property, personal behaviour over group behaviour, and individual opinion over what anyone
else might think.
Collectivist cultures, on the other hand, value the group over the individual. These collectivist
cultures place “we” before “I” and value commitment to family, tribe, and clan; their people tend to be
loyal to spouse, employer, community, and country. Collectivist cultures value cooperation over
competition, and group-defined social norms and duties over personal opinions. An ancient Confucian
saying captures the spirit of collectivist cultures: “If one wants to establish himself, he should help others
to establish themselves first.”
2. M-Time Versus P-Time
M-time, or monochronic time schedule, compartmentalizes time to meet personal needs,
separates task and social dimensions, and points to the future (Ting-Toomey, 1997). M- Time is dominant
in Canada, the United States, and Northern Europe. These cultures see time as something that can be
compartmentalized, wasted, or saved.
P-time, or polychromic time schedule views time as contextually based and relationally oriented
(Ting-Tooney, 1997, p. 395). For P-time cultures, time is not saved or wasted; instead, time is only one
factor in a much larger and more complicated context.
3. High-Context vs. Low-Context
All international communication is influenced by cultural differences. Even the choice of
communication medium can have cultural overtones. The determining factor may not be the degree of
industrialization, but rather whether the country falls into a high-context or low-context culture (Goman,
2011). High-context cultures leave much of the message unspecified, to be understood through context,
nonverbal cues, and between-the-lines interpretation of what is actually said. By contrast, low-context
cultures expect messages to be explicit and specific.
4. Affective vs. Neutral
In international business practices, reason and emotion both play a role. Which
of these dominates depends upon whether we are affective (readily showing emotions) or emotionally
neutral in our approach. Members of neutral cultures do not telegraph their feelings, but keep them
carefully controlled and subdued. In cultures with high affect, people show their feelings plainly by
laughing, smiling, grimacing, scowling, and sometimes crying, shouting, or walking out of the room.

5. Non-verbal Cultural Differences in Communication

Our knowledge on nonverbal communication is invaluable. It helps us to be conscious of
messages that we may send in face-to-face setting.

Nonverbal Cultural Differences

The table below further shows some differences in nonverbal communication in some countries.

Hand gestures Hand sign for “OK”
characterized by touching the
forefinger and thumb together
can mean a situation or person is
satisfactory in North America.
In Tunisia the “OK” sign means
zero, like a person is nothing. In
Greece it is an obscenity.
In Turkey, men sometimes hold
hands as a sign of friendship.
The Japanese avoid touching as
a greeting, including shaking
hands, and prefer the traditional
bow.

Eye contact Direct eye contact in North
America shows interest and
attention.
Physical Space In North American culture,
standing in close proximity can
be uncomfortable because this
space is often reserved for
intimates.
In Japan and some other Eastern
cultures, direct eye contact can
signal disrespect, aggression, or
an invasion of privacy.
In some South American
cultures, close physical
proximity can show connection
and comfort, whether or not the
person is an intimate.

Tips for Effective Communication with Diverse Workplace Audiences

1. Understand the value of differences.
2. Don’t expect conformity.
 3. Practice focused, thoughtful and open-minded listening.
4. Invite, use, and give feedback.
5. Make fewer assumptions.
6. Learn about your cultural self.
7. Learn about other cultures and identity groups.
8. Seek common grounds.

Strategies for Improving Intercultural Communication

Having some strategies in advance will prepare you for new situations with people from other
cultures and co-cultures and will increase your confidence in your ability to communicate effectively with
a variety of people.
1. Conduct a personal self-assessment. How do your own attitudes toward different cultures and
co-cultures influence your communication with them?

2. Practice supportive communication behaviors. Supportive behaviors, such as empathy,

encourage success in intercultural exchanges; defensive behaviors tend to hamper effectiveness.

3. Develop sensitivity toward diversity. One healthy communication perspective holds that you can
learn something from all people. Diverse populations provide ample opportunity for learning.
Take the time to learn about other cultures and co-cultures before a communication situation.

4. Avoid stereotypes. Avoid making assumptions about another’s culture, and get to know
individuals for themselves.

5. Avoid ethnocentrism. You may know your own culture the best, but familiarity does not make
your culture superior to all others. You will learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of
your own culture by learning more about other cultures.

6. Develop code sensitivity. Code sensitivity refers to the ability to use the verbal and nonverbal
language appropriate to the cultural or co-cultural norms of the individual with whom you are
communicating. The more you know about another’s culture, the better you will be at adapting.

7. Seek shared codes. A key ingredient in establishing shared codes is being open-minded about
differences while you determine which communication style to adopt during intercultural
communication.

8. Use and encourage descriptive feedback. Effective feedback encourages adaption and is crucial
in intercultural communication. Both participants should be willing to accept feedback and
exhibit supportive behaviours. Feedback should be immediate, honest, specific, and clear.

9. Open communication channels. Intercultural communication can be frustrating. One important

strategy to follow during such interactions is to be patient as you seek mutual understanding.

10. Manage conflicting beliefs and practices. Think ahead about how you might handle minor and
major differences, from everyday behaviour to seriously different practices like punishments,
realities, and beliefs.
Language plays an important role in achieving a more effective communication. Using appropriate
terms also avoids conflicts and misunderstanding. Study the table below.

Gender biased Bias- free

female doctor, woman attorney, cleaning woman doctor, attorney, cleaner
waiter/waitress, authoress, stewardess server, author, flight attendant
mankind, man-hour, man-made humanity, working hours, artificial
office girls office workers
the doctor . . . he doctors . . . they
the teacher . . . she teachers . . . they
 executives and their wives
foreman, flagman, workman
businessman, salesman
Each employee had his picture taken.
Racially or Ethnically Biased
An Indian accountant was hired.
James Lee, an African American, applied.
executives and their spouses
lead worker, flagger, worker
businessperson, sales representative
Each employee had a picture taken. All employees
had their pictures taken. Each employee had his or
her picture taken.
Bias- free
An accountant was hired.
James Lee applied.

Age Biased Bias -free

The law applied to old people. The law applied to people over sixty-five.
Sally Kay, 55, was transferred. Sally Kay was transferred.
a spry old gentleman a man
a little old lady a woman
Disability Biased Bias -free
afflicted with arthritis, suffering from . . ., has arthritis
crippled by . . .
confined to a wheelchair uses a wheelchair

Questions for Discussion

1. To which culture do you belong? Describe some of its characteristics, then examine how it
differs from other cultures.
2. Consider the cultural characteristics discussed. Which culture do you identify with most of
prefer?
3. What is the implication of a diverse workplace environment?
4. How can your own cultural experiences affect your performance at work?
5. To what extent does cultural relativism or ethnocentrism affect you?

ASSESSMENT 1
Examine carefully the sayings below, and determine whether they reflect a collectivist or an
individualistic culture.
1. When spiders unite, they can tie up a lion.
2. God helps those who help themselves.
3. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
4. The ill-mannered child finds a father wherever he goes.