Stephan Dahl
Communications and Culture Transformation
Cultural Diversity, Globalization and Cultural Convergence

Chapter 4: The need for an interactive model of cultural transformation

In the previous parts of this paper we have examined three basic influence types, all of which have a potential to lead to some form of culture exchange, or how Kim (1996) terms it: "we live in the midst of rapid cultural change and increasing intercultural connectedness" (Kim, 1996: 299).

Undoubtedly, television and cinema, the Internet, changes in political structure and international business expose us everyday to new cultures, values and attitudes, whether or not actively perceived by us. New forms of communication have brought the vision of a "global village" and "globalization", not only of business and finance, but also of culture.

As I have argued, that the media has undergone a profound change, and polarizes itself in the two corners of a global media, with universal programming and regional or local programming, displaying global-like content. This shift moves the media from focusing on the country's culture to a more universal or global culture, whose values it displays to the receiver.

The Internet shifts our communication use to a potentially global form. With the rise of the Internet around the globe, intercultural communications become "a mouse click away". The Internet indeed gives the chance to experience intercultural communications at low cost, which facilitates the use of it in a wider audience.

Global business forces the employees to think more global, and experience intercultural encounters. This effect can reach from the placement in a foreign country to the foreign co-worker in a home factory.

Politics also play an important role. While political framework is less "intercultural" as such, it opens up the way to a intercultural experience. The European Union, NAFTA and ASEAN are examples of those political structures facilitating intercultural encounters. Equally, the collapse of the Eastern Block, and the following investment of money and people in those countries have made intercultural encounters possible to what was largely a closed system before. The political changes in turn have also influenced the globalization of media available in those countries experiencing the opening of their systems, as well as the availability of communication resources such as Internet.

Although the culture shock, if one wishes to use that term, that is experienced differs in degree by the circumstances that surround it. A culture shock of cinema and television will be less great that that experienced when conducting a cross cultural, inter-active conversation over the Internet, and even more when dealing with foreign business partners.

Following the notion that a culture shock "is thought of as a profound learning experience that leads to a high degree of self-awareness and personal growth" (Adler, 1987:29), this situation would suggest that we find ourselves in a continual learning approach, where we adapt to the new. Kim (1996) notes: "Intercultural communication experiences are inheritantly stressful in varying degrees [...] An outcome of intercultural stress adaptation experiences is an intercultural transformation in internal conditions." (Kim, 1996:315).

Following this reasoning, we can state that cultures, who are exposed to the influences (among others) discussed in the previous sections experience continuos intercultural transformation. This would show that basically static models of culture, as largely favored in intercultural research, are inadequate to explain and predict current culture situations. There is hence a need to develop a more interactive model of cultural transformation, that is capable to explain the shifts in the cultures that we are experiencing in the world today.

By looking at an individual experiencing intercultural transformation, we can possibly explain a communal cultural shift.