1. Social interaction.

Although the ability to communicate effectively has long been an important aspect of any social interaction between people from different cultures, within the past two decades it has become essential. In the wake of the Berlin Wall falling on November 9, 1989, the power structure of the international community moved from a bipolar (United States and the Soviet Union) to a unipolar (United States) position. Now, the movement is rapidly toward a multipolar international arrangement. Responsible world leaders are working toward greater cooperation on all fronts – economic, political, and military. President Obama’s policy of engaging other nations, even when their aims appear counter to U.S. interests, demonstrates this trend toward increased international integration and crosscultural interaction.

Movement to a more global, interconnected community has been abetted by dramatic technological changes, such as digital communication advances that permit the uninterrupted transfer of large amounts of data across national borders and breakthroughs in transportation that facilitate the rapid, economical movement of people and goods over vast distances. These events, often referred to collectively as “globalization,” have brought about unprecedented levels of interaction among people from different national, ethnic, and religious cultural backgrounds.

Media originating in one country are generally available throughout the world. Multinational and transnational organizations, replete with multicultural workforces, are now commonplace. An increasing number of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are engaged in emergency relief, humanitarian assistance, and charitable service work around the globe. World tourism, once available only to the wealthy, is a growth industry, with package tours to international destinations tailored to almost any budget. Nations with declining birthrates and aging populations are recruiting health care workers from abroad. Immigration, international marriage, and intercountry adoptions have added to U.S. cultural diversity. For example, for the ten-year period 1999–2010, U.S. State Department statistics report that over 178,000 children from other nations were adopted by U.S. families (“Total Adoptions,” 2010).

Broadly speaking, globalization has brought about the realization that modern societies must learn to cooperate in order to prevent their mutual selfdestruction. There is a growing perception that employment of force may result in near-term solutions but will ultimately create problems that are more complex.

Increased concern over the planet’s ecological degradation resulting from climate change and pollution has raised awareness of the need for international cooperation on a scale previously unseen. There is also a recognition of the need to engage in global cooperative efforts on a number of other issues—nuclear arms, terrorism, over-population, world poverty, and escalating competition for natural resources.

Closer to home, the United States is faced with such culturally related domestic concerns as immigration, an aging population, growth of minority groups, and ideological divisions. Solutions, either whole or partial, to these circumstances will require increased intercultural understanding.

Before moving further into the study of culture and communication, we need to specify our approach to intercultural communication and recognize that other people investigate quite different perspectives. For example, some scholars who examine mass media are concerned with international broadcasting, worldwide freedom of expression, the premise of Western domination of media information, and the use of electronic technologies for instantaneous worldwide communication. Other groups study international communication with an emphasis on communication between national governments—the communication of diplomacy, economic assistance, disaster relief, and even political propaganda.

Still others are interested in the communication needed to conduct business on a global basis. Their concerns include such issues as cross-cultural marketing, negotiation Broadly speaking, globalization has brought about the realization that modern societies must learn to cooperate in order to prevent their mutual self-destruction.

As tides of immigrants and refugees continue to arrive in the United States and other developed nations, we will be confronted with increased cultural diversity. If we are to continue to assert that cultural diversity is a valuable, desirable asset and embrace the concept of a global village, we must quickly learn to accept and tolerate the resulting differences. Your authors do not profess to have the solution to these problems. However, as a means of better preparing you for life in the global village, which will require frequent interactions with people who experience the world differently from you, we do hope to stimulate thought and discussion about the advantages and difficulties of multiculturalism and the need for effective intercultural communication.