High-Speed Internet Access to the Other: The Influence of Cultural Orientations on Self-Disclosures in Offline and Online Relationships

The global village metaphor, originally popularized by Marshall McLuhan, suggests that individuals connected to information and communication technologies become more involved with others from around the world. The speed at which messages are communicated is one factor why Internet-supported technologies create a sense of community. The diffusion of Internet networks to areas around the world naturally increases the potential for intercultural communication. Considering the cultural differences of the communicators and diminished social cues of the environment, the opportunity for misunderstandings may be elevated in intercultural Internet-based communication. The present investigation explores how two important components of culture—individualism and collectivism—influence communication behaviors in face-to-face and computer-mediated relationships. Self-disclosures, which are fundamental to relationship development, are specifically studied. The findings reveal that collectivism is associated with fewer self-disclosures in computer-mediated relationships than in comparable face-to-face relationships. The difference between self-disclosure behaviors in face-to-face and computer-mediated relationships is more pronounced among individuals high in collectivism than those high in individualism. Implications to social information processing theory and future directions for intercultural Internet-based communication research are considered.     

Paths to the Practices of Citizenship: Political Discussion and Socialization among Mexican-heritage Immigrants in the US

Building on research on immigrant political socialization and social connections in politics, I advance a theoretical model for how immigrants develop their sense of political discussion in a new nation. This model, the Social Contact Model of Immigrant Political Socialization, focuses on the influences coming from close-knit social groups and wider-ranging social networks. I apply the model through a qualitative study of Mexican-heritage immigrants in the US and the likely sources of socialization that influence their political discussion behavior. The findings provide some support for the theoretical model and suggest there are important differences between Latino immigrants and native-born Whites in how they learn to engage in political discussion.     

Material Worlds: The Shared Cultures of Southern Italy and its Mediterranean Neighbours in the Tenth to Twelfth Centuries

As scholars of people's physical environments, we tend to view the past according to our own forms of categorisation rather than those of contemporaries. From a medieval Mediterranean perspective, the fragmentation of scholarship caused by modern disciplinary constraints—Islamic, Byzantine, Western—has artificially set apart cultures which had more in common than has hitherto been acknowledged. This is a comparative study of the dress and textile cultures of southern Italy, particularly Apulia, Egypt and the Fatimid Caliphate and regions in the Byzantine Empire, as recorded in dowries, wills and other documents. This article also demonstrates how using the Mediterranean as a framework for comparison allows us to identify new areas where cultural differences really lay.     

Phenomenology and hermeneutics: Evolving approaches to the study of intercultural and international communication

The thought models and theories of many individuals and disciplines have contributed to the study of human communication. In recent years scholars have become increasingly aware of the fact that methodologies superimposed upon the actual event of human communication have significantly shaped our perceptions of these events. Going beyond methodological approaches or quarrels, a phenomenological basis requires direct encounter with the event and an attempt to let methodology evolve out of that direct encounter, rather than attempting a so-called objective approach. Self, experience, values, and human relationships are of primary concern to the phenomenologist who sees meaning and interpretation as a unitary concept. Phenomenology thus concerns itself with understanding, and the bases for such understanding, rather than with the mere application of methodology. At the same time, phenomenology by its very approach, concerns itself not merely with the discovery of some abstract truth, but must be deeply concerned also with the improvement of the human condition founded in conscious experience. Behavior and meaning thus become conjoined. The ultimate aim of phenomenological studies becomes a concern with the ontological as well as the epistemological bases of human understanding.     

Metric multidimensional scaling and automatic message generation applied to the tourism industry: The case of Israel

The present paper demonstrates the use of metric multidimensional scaling analysis to determine messages which could be utilized to enhance tourism for a particular region. An example utilizing the case of Israel is studied here in order to illustrate these techniques. Thirty professors and their spouses were interviewed to obtain ratio estimates of differences among 16 concepts associated with the focal concepts of “Israel” and “my vacation.” Data were analyzed using the metric program GALILEO (T.M.), which rendered a ratio-scaled configuration of the concepts in a multidimensional space. Further, using an algorithm called the Automatic Message Generator (T.M.), messages were formulated which would move “my vacation” closer to “Israel.” The techniques and the results are presented so as to make them relevant to those persons in charge of the generation of messages in the tourism industry. It is argued in this paper that the use of these techniques may facilitate the task of assessing and changing the attitudes of individuals with regard to their vacation preferences.