Social Distance

Emory S. Bogardus is one of the first scholars to create a scale for measuring social distance among different groups. He defined social distance as “the degree of sympathetic understanding that functions between person and person, between person and group, and between groups”.
His scale comprises of seven items ranging from total acceptance of an out-group to absolute rejection. The first one is determined with acceptance of marriage of a close relative to a member of an out-group, and the last is indicated with request of exclusion of an out-group member.
Lawrence Bobo, American sociologist observes intermarriage as the “last taboo” in race relations (Weaver, 2008).
But Bogardus scale also received some criticisms. Some believe that Bogardus Scale measure psychological distance, not social one. They argue that there are people that like each other very much, but still there is a significant social distance among them.
Another argument by Bogardus is that social distance among different social groups in the United States decreased in the course of 20th century. This argument supported by some other scholars. Recently Weaver (2008) in an essay titled “Social Distance as a Measure of Prejudice among Ethnic Groups in the United States” observed “another decade of decreasing prejudice among ethnic groups”. But he also discussed “despite strong evidence that prejudice has decreased slowly [in the United States], the findings of large and significant differences between almost all of these groups suggest that considerable ethnic prejudice still exists”.
He argues that still different ethnic groups in the US stick to significant differences among themselves. I.e. in a Bogardus scale they usually rank themselves as the most favorable in desirability of ethnic groups as neighbors and acceptability of ethnic groups as marriage partners (Weaver, 2008).
Finally he quotes Smith’s conclusion that the “recognition of the mass of prejudice, discrimination, and inequality that persists [in the US] is sobering and discouraging”.

References

Weaver, Charles N. (2008). Social Distance as a Measure of Prejudice Among Ethnic Groups in the United States. Journal of Applied Social Psychology.38(3). pp. 779-795.

Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions

“Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster." Prof. Geert Hofstede, Emeritus Professor, Maastricht University.

Geert Hofstede, Dutch anthropologist, conducted a research in international subsidiaries of IBM between 1967 to 1973. Primarily he wanted to find out the work attitudes of international employees. He used a questioner for his survey.

He published his results in 1980 in a book that titled “cultures consequences”. Hofstede believes that world cultures differ in five dimensions. And those dimensions are power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, femininity vs. masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long- vs. short-term orientation.

Power distance, refers to the unequal distribution of power in a society. He argues that countries like Malaysia, Guatemala and Mexico are high power distance countries, i.e. older generations are respected in a traditional way.

Individualism vs. collectivism, Hofstede claims that individualistic societies like the US and Australia value personal achievement whereas in collective societies like Panama and Ecuador people in exchange of their royalty to a group receive protection.

Femininity vs. masculinity, in Hofstede view masculine cultures, like Japan and Italy, emphasize on traditional distinction between gender roles and perceptions, while feminine cultures such as Norway and Sweden, women are valued as to the same extent as men.

Uncertainty avoidance, refers to the extent people tend to avoid ambiguity and uncertainty. Hofstede says that countries like Greece and Portugal are high in uncertainty avoidance and tend to choose more formal rules and regulations while countries such as Jamaica and Singapore which are low in uncertainty avoidance are vise versa.

Finally Hostage’s fifth dimension is long/short term orientation. In an excerpt of his ideas, Hofstede in his personal homepage says: “this fifth dimension was found in a study among students in 23 countries around the world, using a questionnaire designed by Chinese scholars. Values associated with Long Term Orientation are thrift and perseverance; values associated with Short Term Orientation are respect for tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and protecting one's 'face' ”.

Hofstede theory of cultural dimensions also came under some harsh criticisms. Some argued that his methodology was not valid. Some questioned the validity of his data and others said that we can not generalize the results that extracted from a survey on a company level to a nation or culture.

But Brendan McSweeney –who is a full professor and Director of Research at the Department of Accounting, Finance and Management, University of Essex, England - was one of the scholars that challenged Hofstede theory seriously. In an article titled “Hostage’s Model of National Cultural Differences and Their Consequences: A triumph of faith - A failure of analysis”, McSweeney questioned Hostage’s assumptions. He said that IBM Company as a micro-location is not typical of a nation. Also employees of a company are not representatives of a country. Furthermore he discussed that the main dimensions of culture can not be identified by a questionnaire.

In his response to McSweeney, Hofstede accepted that nations are not the best units of studying cultures but said that researchers do not have any other choice as boundaries of different cultures can not easily be determined. He also said that he intended to measure differences between national cultures and any set of samples from national populations can provide information about such differences.

References

Callahan, Ewa (2006).Cultural similarities ad differences in the design of university web sites. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication.239-273.

Hofstede,Geert(2008).A summary of my ideas about national culture differences. Available from: http://feweb.uvt.nl/center/hofstede/index.htm retrieved May 3rd 2008.

McSweeney, B. (2002). Hostage’s model of national cultural differences and consequences: A triumph of faith - a failure of analysis. Human Relations, 55, 89–118.

The Other

The 3rd Annual International Conference on "Engaging the Other: The Power of Compassion” will be held from September 4 - 7, 2008 in San Francisco (San Mateo), California, USA. Registration for the conference is Open to the Public.

This conference is intended to address “roots of negative stereotypes, prejudice, and concepts of "The Other" from a universal, cross-cultural perspective”.

Common Bond Institute (CBI) is the organizer of the conference. CBI is a U.S. based Non-Governmental Organization.

For more information visit: http://cbiworld.org/index.htm

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The concept of the Other is essentially a modern concept. Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt in their book Empire argue how modernism determines insiders and outsiders. This is for the good of imperialism and in Negri and Hardts words Empire. Modernism, they say, with taking this dualistic view define its own boundaries. This in turn, facilitates controlling different people from different cultures.

Other is: “ A person, persons, group, social class, community, race or nation who are not `us` and who are defined by their difference from us; yet who by that difference contribute to our concept of self, as individuals, members of groups etc”

Hill, Anne and James Watson (2006). Dictionary of media and communication studies. 7^th edition. Hodder Arnold.London.p.207.

In this sense, the Other who is from outside is an alien and probably threatening. Edward Said in his reputable study, “Orientalism” shows that the orient in dominant western discourse was constructed as an “other” to the west.

Thus, apparently this otherization process is a socially constructed process. Media can contribute to this process a great deal. They can represent dominant culture’s dislike, disapproval and fear of a group which is entitled as the Other. Media in the modern world reinstate the binary divisions of progressive modernistic states.

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.

Islamophobia; what Muslims can do?

Although the term Islamophobia is commonly used after 2001 September eleventh attacks, it probably dates back to 1980’s, when the presence of Muslims in Western world increased.
“In 1997, the British Runnymede Trust defined Islamophobia as the "dread or hatred of Islam and therefore, to the fear and dislike of all Muslims," stating that it also refers to the practice of discriminating against Muslims by excluding them from the economic, social, and public life of the nation. It includes the perception that Islam has no values in common with other cultures, is inferior to the West and is a violent political ideology rather than a religion.” [1].
Islamophobia is a form of racism and discrimination, though rarely studied and regarded in this sense.

***

The rule of media in spreading Islamophobic ideas and sentiments is very vital. The unrealistic representation of Muslims in some Western media is one of media tricks that have been used to manipulate the reality.
However, here I need to mention two things. First of all I don’t say some ferocious acts by some (so-called) Muslims did not happen. But the point is, some media over symbolize and over generalize these happenings to all Muslims.
Also by saying that, I do not mean to apply a conspiracy theory to my ideas. I do not believe there is an orchestrated effort among the majority of westerners to confront with Muslims. But we can not deny that there is such an effort among some westerners. The idea of confronting Muslims especially invigorated, as I mentioned, after 9/11th. The cruel act of killing civilians by some extremists provided neo-conservatives with an excuse to spearhead the assaults on Muslim’s faith and culture.
All said, underlines the importance of a self criticizing process among Muslims. I think the key phrase for Muslims is “do not ask what the westerners can do for you, but ask what you can do to heal the situation”.


[1]. Runnymede 1997, p. 5, cited in Quraishi 2005, p. 60.