A new journal on intercultural communication

“When cultures collide, all kinds of possibilities open up for communication scholars to rethink ‘‘communication,’’ as well as the world.”
Tom Nakayama


First issue of “Journal of International and Intercultural Communication “ is available from February 2008.

“We should always see the complexity of the human condition and the many different ways of knowing that exist around the world.” Tom Nakayama, Editor of the journal wrote in his statement for the first issue of the journal.
Rona Tamiko Halualani, Arizona State University professor published an essay on the relationship between globalization and the diasporic movements of cultural groups, under the title of ““Where Exactly is the Pacific?": Global Migrations, Diasporic Movements, and Intercultural Communication”. In this article she discussed the practice of identity among diasporic groups. Article’s hypothesis was diasporic groups dynamically reconstitute their understandings of cultural tradition, authenticity, and identity in line with their diasporic contexts and experiences.
She used qualitative in-depth interviewing methods to examine her hypothesis on two Pacific Islander groups (Tongans and Hawaiians). Finally she came out with a new question: Where is the Pacific? And then concludes: Cultural identities are changing due to globalized effects.
In another article, a group of American scholars argued that those characterized by higher degrees of independence will tend to perceive any message that departs from the truth as highly deceptive in nature and those characterized by higher degrees of interdependence will be more likely to perceive messages that depart from truth as ‘‘not deceptive”.
In their article titled “‘‘Deception: Moral Transgression or Social Necessity?’’: Cultural-Relativity of Deception Motivations and Perceptions of Deceptive Communication”, Min-Sun Kim and his colleagues used Revised Self-Construal Scale to determine participants’ cultural identities.
The sample size was 664, and research participants were chosen from Hong Kong, Hawaii and the US.
They concluded that the willingness to use the various deception strategies was found to be moderated by effects of the self-benefit versus other-benefit situations.
Also Pei-Wen Lee in an article on processes of relational identity formation within intercultural friendships, titled “Stages and Transitions of Relational Identity Formation in Intercultural Friendship: Implications for Identity Management Theory”, argued that three stages (i.e., initial encounter, interaction, and involvement) and two transition phases emerged within the intercultural friendships of his research.
Lee’s theoretical framework was based on identity management theory (IMT). In his research, Lee used Grounded Theory and for data collection, he conducted several interviews.
Eventually he concludes that while IMT contributes to people’s understanding of the process of intercultural relationship formation, it overlooks how intercultural relationships transition from one stage to another.
finally, Etsuko Kinefuchi and Mark P. Orbe, respectively professors of University of North Carolina and Western Michigan University, in an article under the title of ” Situating Oneself in a Radicalized World: Understanding Student Reactions to Crash through Standpoint Theory and Context-Positionality Frames”, argued that students, regardless of the region, race, gender, and other backgrounds, were deeply influenced by the Oscar-wining movie, Crash.
Kinefuchi and Orbe’s standpoint theories based upon the simple idea that the world looks different depending on people’s social standings. The researchers used longitudinal methods (they conducted the research over a period of 18 months).
They contributed a great deal to complementing standpoint theories with the context-positionality framework.
At the end they wrote: "students of various racial groups positioned themselves in relation to social and racial issues".
Kinefuchi and Orbe added: "standpoint theories also provide motivational contexts for the racially diverse inclinations and aversions".
Routledge is the publisher of Journal of International and Intercultural Communication.