
Culture, Technology, Communication
Towards an Intercultural Global Village
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Provides cross-cultural perspectives on computer-mediated communication.
Description
Stability and success in our electronic global village increasingly depends on the complex interactions of culture, communication, and technology. This book offers both theoretical approaches and case studies of these interactions from diverse cultural domains, including Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the United States. This global perspective helps to counteract the Anglo-American presumptions that have dominated discussion and literature on computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies. The contributors uncover and challenge the culture-bound values and communicative preferences inherent in CMC technologies—including values and preferences related to gender—and also document non-Western examples of implementing these technologies in ways that catalyze global communication while preserving and enhancing local cultures. Taken together, these essays articulate the interdisciplinary foundations and practical models necessary to design and use CMC technologies in ways that help us to avoid the choice between a global but culturally homogenous "McWorld" and fragmented local cultures whose identities are preserved only in their opposition to globalization.
Charles Ess is Professor of Philosophy and Religion and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Drury University, and editor of Philosophical Perspectives on Computer-Mediated Communication, also published by SUNY Press. Fay Sudweeks is Senior Lecturer in Information Systems at Murdoch University.
Reviews
"This book provides a well-needed cultural context for computer-mediated communication. It places the Internet and its meaning in the wider area of different countries and cultures, and points out issues of access and attitudes that would otherwise be missed in the current discussions of the Information Revolution. " — Robert Cavalier, Carnegie Mellon University
"Thoughtful and intelligent. ..the many examples of how different cultures interact with information technology are stimulating. " — Thomas L. Jacobson, University at Buffalo, State University of New York