Intercultural Communication and Technology (ICCT) Learning Community

The newly created Intercultural Communication and Technology (ICCT) Learning Community had its first meeting last week and we wanted to share our progress and invite your participation. For the most current discussion, please check out our blog:https://digitalcommons.georgetown.edu/blogs/icct/

The bulk of the discussion concerned the topics we want to explore this year. Each topic that was submitted reflects our concern and fascination with the state of the world and the significance of intercultural communication in deciphering and contributing to its complexity. In fact, each topic of interest has such a tremendous potential for exploration that an attempt at a summary seems almost an injustice. Yet, there are several overarching themes that emerge. Those interested in social justice and international development highlighted media and cultural representation, communication among intercultural organizations, how social media is being used in the developing world and intercultural communication as it related to gender and health disparities. Identity, both personal and national, and the media's role in constructing it was also brought up as a subject which intercultural communication theory might help illuminate. Additionally, information technology and its effect on intercultural communication in such diverse spaces as art, business, and politics also emerged as a major theme. This is in no way an exhaustive list; rather, it serves to highlight the unique potential this group has to contribute to the discourse in the discipline, so often lacking a focus on communication technologies.

In terms of the vision for this group, we hope it will take the form of a productive community in which individual work such as blog posts, papers, and theoretical frameworks are complemented and enhanced by resource sharing, group discussions, blog comments, speakers and ideas. Taking into consideration the intercultural diversity of the group, we are, in fact, embarking on a "technology mediated intercultural communication" journey of our own.

Already, we have several blog posts - by Kristine Quinio and Guaran Mishra - which comment on the cultural aspects of privacy and the relationship between online video and languages, respectively. Susannah Fox has also posted about intercultural communication and health disparities. We encourage you to read them, comment on them, use them as inspiration for you own work, and of course, as jumping off points for your own blog posts.

If you would like to be a part of this community, please send  an email  to Margarita Rayzberg (mr399) with your NetID and will promptly make you a member. Alternatively, if you would like to subscribe to have this blog's updates emailed to you, you can click on the following link and follow the instructions:

http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmitfeedId=2426756&loc=en_US.