Interracial Friendships - Coursework Example

Interracial FriendshipsI. Key Communication Issues of Interracial Friendships Interracial friendships or communications should stress the significance of getting to know unfamiliar people and traditions and attaining greater cognitive resiliency through intercultural communication and interaction. This endeavor will be most successful when both cultures acknowledge and tolerate their limitations and differences, adopt an encouraging outlook, and celebrate their diversities. Both cultures should embrace the perspectives of each other since acculturation is necessitated reciprocally of both cultures in the progress of intercultural interaction. II. Key Communication Issues of Interracial Romantic Relationships Several, if not most of the dilemmas and challenges confronted by partners in an intercultural romantic relationship are indefinable, such as communication dilemmas with each other and with both parties’ loved ones, the approval or blessings of their immediate families, gender stereotypes, individual aspirations and values, rearing children, and the notion of the nuclear family vis-à-vis the extended family.

Hence, the concern is where to initiate in deciphering the intricacies of intercultural romantic relationships and build up harmony within two very different cultures. The response to this concern is difficult to figure out and will most definitely differ from one intercultural relationship to the next; nevertheless, the fundamental notions are both plain and simple, namely, education, wisdom, communication, respect and tolerance. III. Computer Mediated Communication in Intercultural Relationships Computer mediated communication can facilitate intercultural relationships mainly through the Internet which provides another perspective and means for people to communicate and meet with unfamiliar people for the first time, set off meaningful and pleasurable discussions or conversations, and construct secure, long-term intercultural relationships, comparable to face-to-face interactions.

Through regular and far-reaching verbal communication of social information, couples interacting on the Internet could vigorously commit in self-disclosure and strengthen intimacy and ties. However, CMC could also hinder a good intercultural relationship because of the inherent ambiguities that come from communication technologies such as the Internet. There are things, such as emotional and facial expression, that are important in building a strong intercultural relationship that only a face-to-face interaction can facilitate. IV. Define Popular Culture Popular culture is the assemblage of concepts, ideas, notions that are popular, trendy or widespread and create the dominant culture.

These ideas are profoundly manipulated by mass media. Popular culture is also regarded to be the prevalent cultural elements in every society that are preserved and carried over through a society’s lingua franca or mother tongue. V. Cultural Group Portrayals in Popular Culture and Intercultural Communication Popular cultures emerged with vast diversity for centuries prior to the emergence of the modern media and these popular cultures have significance and effect on the everyday life of individuals in various cultures, thereby affecting as well intercultural communication.

Global communication, especially through media such as television and printed materials, and popular cultures of developing nations has impact on intercultural communication. Moreover, there are factors included in popular culture that differentiate it from communication; for instance, radical comic strip, the function of stimulants such as coffee, tobacco can affect self-adjustment and their application in the communication process of different cultures; also, the place of stereotypes and stigmas in intercultural communication.VI. Media Portrays ‘Racialized Others’ Within a discussion of liberal standards and meanings the media and producers of culture expressed and disseminated influential and negative accounts, demoralizing and degrading images and notions regarding racial minorities.

In a racialized society, the collections of representation and figurative practices are applied to indicate racial divergence and suggest the presence of racialized others. VII. Recommendations for Diversity in Media