Nonverbal communication and culture. Identity, stereotypes and prejudices, страница 71

Learning about Culture without Personal Experience

How do we know about places we have never been? Much of what we know probably comes from popular culture—the media experience of television, music, videos, and magazines that most of us know and share. How does this experience affect intercultural communication?

Even if you have never been to Brazil, Britain, India, or China, you may hold tremendous amounts of information about these places from the news, movies, television shows, advertisements, and more. The kind and quality of information we all have about other places is influenced by popular culture. But the views that books, magazines, and movies portray supplement the information we get from other sources. For example, if you see a movie about China, you are likely to be familiar with the events in Tiananmen Square, the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, and the movement to free Tibet of Chinese domination. Popular culture is pervasive (it spreads).

Unlike popular culture, folk culture is often overlooked as a player in the development of cultural identity, perhaps because it is more obscure (vague and unclear) and less driven by financial interests. Yet, many folk traditions are deeply embedded in the history of a culture and their perpetuation can be extremely important to members of that cultural group. Popular culture, on the other hand, is less inward looking and attempts to appeal to people far beyond those who produced it. In many ways, it is helpful to view popular culture as contrary and complementary to folk culture.

The complexity of these two kinds of culture is often overlooked. People express concern about the social effects of popular culture—for example, the influence of television violence on children. Yet, most people look down on the study of folk and popular culture, as if these forms of culture carry nothing of significance. Then, too, people tend to be interested in folk traditions only if they are members of the specific cultural group that holds those traditions. The inherent contradiction makes it difficult sometimes to investigate and discuss folk and popular culture.

Products of U.S. popular culture are well known and circulate widely on the international market. The popularity of U.S. music stars and of Hollywood films and television shows creates an uneven flow of texts between the United States and other nations. We are witnessing the apparent ease with which American television programs cross cultural and linguistic frontiers.

In contrast, U.S. Americans are rarely exposed to popular culture from outside the United States. Exceptions to this largely one-way movement of popular culture include rock stars who sing in English. Consider how difficult it is to find foreign films or television programs throughout most of the United States. Even when non-US, corporations market their products in the United States, they almost always use U.S. advertising agencies, collectively known as "Madison Avenue." The apparent imbalance of cultural texts globally can lead to cultural imperialism.

The study of popular culture has become increasingly important in the communication field, whereas the study of folk culture is developing far more slowly. These forms of culture are significant influences in intercultural interaction.

What Is Folk Culture?

Folk culture is not the national culture of a nation-state. Nor is it high culture or low culture. Folk culture is something else entirely. Although folklorists often look to the past to study traditional culture, they are also interested in how traditions are played out in contemporary society to form cultural group identities.