Culture and Subculture (P. 6-8) a Culture Essay

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culture and subculture (p. 6-8)

A culture is a "community or population sufficiently large enough to be self-sustaining," in that it can be self-perpetuating (p. 6). There are four main elements of culture, according to Hofstede: symbols, rituals, values, heroes, and myths (p. 6). These elements of culture are transmitted via formal institutions like schools and also informally via peers and family members. Identifying with culture helps to create a cultural identity; an individual identifies with the history, symbols, rituals, values, heroes, and myths of the culture.

A culture within a culture is a subculture. Subcultures usually exist in large and complex societies (p. 8). A subculture is usually more specific than a culture, in that it can be based on ethnicity or lifestyle. A person can also identify with both the culture and subculture at the same time.

Historical and varying perspectives on communication (p. 39; 44)

Theorists have identified at least seven traditional perspectives on communication (p. 39). These include the rhetorical tradition of Aristotle, the semiotic tradition that examines signs and symbols; the phenomenological tradition, involving personal experience and dialogue; the cybernetic tradition, incorporating information systems; the sociopsychological tradition, emphasizing behavior; the sociocultural tradition, which focuses on society and culture; and finally, the critical tradition, stressing power and oppression in human history. There are also Confucian perspectives on communication, which stresses the need for social harmony, respect for tradition, and respect for authority and hierarchy.

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High vs. low context (p. 44; 69)

Context is an important component of communication, as the environmental and situational variables do have a strong impact on the coding and decoding of messages. Physical location, type of social relationship, and individual factors all influence the context of communication as well as its quality.

Cultures can be classified according to their perception of context in the process of communication. Researchers have shown significant differences in the ways people from different cultures perceive signs, images, and other types of communication messages. For example, some people are better at detecting changes in a background environment and other people are better at perceiving changes in the foreground of the same image (p. 69-70). Cultures that value context are referred to as high context cultures; these are the cultures most apt to notice shifts in the background than in the foreground. Asian cultures, Native American cultures, and most Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures have been classified as high context (p. 70). On the other hand, North American and Northern European cultures are classified as low context because messages are intended to be explicit rather than dependent on context. Low context cultures tend to value verbal abilities more than high context cultures (p. 70).

Barriers and enablers to multicultural….....

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