Intercultural Communication

Globalization and Social Justice

NEW TO THIS EDITION:

• New and expanded discussions of timely topics include backlash to globalization and implications for intercultural communication, and the rise of the increasing impact of religious fundamentalism throughout the world.
• New and expanded case studies further illuminate critical concepts, address current events, and illustrate how intercultural communication is a site of negotiation and contestation.
• Increased attention to the centrality of new media includes its effects on global and intercultural communication.
• Enhanced examples with current events and statistics better demonstrate methods of analysis central to intercultural praxis.

• A globalization framework introduces students to the complex ways globalization impacts and alters all topics in intercultural communication, including verbal/nonverbal communication, migration/cultural adaptation, media and popular culture, interpersonal relationships, conflict, and identity.
  
• A critical social justice approach provides students with the knowledge to understand current, historical, social, economic, and political inequities that impact intercultural communication on individual and systemic levels.
• An emphasis on intercultural praxis—a process of critical thinking, reflection, and action—offers students practical guidelines for applying their knowledge and skills of intercultural communication in their everyday lives.
• Chapter-opening learning objectives identify what students should be able to do upon completion of the reading.
• Case studies highlight connections between local and global intercultural issues and illustrate a multilevel framework of analysis that attends to the complexities of intercultural communication in the global context through stories and experiences of people from diverse cultures.
• Communicative Dimensions boxes allow students to explore vivid examples of intercultural communication in action to see how different facets of communication play out in the global intercultural context.
• Cultural Identity boxes help students understand how communication and culture shape and reflect identity and in turn how identity plays a role in communicating within and across cultures.
• Intercultural Praxis boxes emphasize ways of developing our awareness and using our power and positionality to enable more equitable and socially just relationships across different cultures by engaging in dialogue, reflecting, and taking informed action.
• Chapter summaries, key terms, discussion questions, and activities allow students to review and apply chapter content to reinforce learning.