Technology & Social Media’s Role in Cultural Competence Education
With the internationalization of technical exchanges and the increasing popularity of
social media in the everyday lives of today’s society, the need for cultural competence education
has become the focus of educators as well as the technical community. Cultural competence is
the capacity to change one’s attitudes, values and behavior so as to be open and flexible with
other cultures and has become increasingly crucial for individuals to survive in our globalized
1 The phenomenon of globalization has opened the possibility to decrease cultural
diversity through the means of technology and social media. “Culture is a learned system of
meanings that fosters a particular sense of shared identity-hood and community-hood among its group members. It is a complex from of reference that consists of a pattern of traditions, beliefs, values norms, symbols and meanings that are shared to varying degrees by interacting members of an identity group” (Ting-Toomey & Takai, 2006, pg. 691) There are many different cultures 2 worldwide which makes it imperative for everyone to foster intercultural communicative competence in order to take an active role in today’s world. Technology has been a contributor in making media the most influential in the opinions of the industrialized as well as developing countries. There are several web-based technologies such as email, chat and video conferencing that have become common means of communication with almost everyone around the world. Computer technologies developed for the purpose of learning a second language has been supporting the teaching of foreign languages since the 1960-70s and realized the potential offered by 21 century social media like Facebook, Twitter st and …show more content…
Web-based learning systems can be powerful tools that support collaborative
teaching and learning. Incorporating internet based social networking tools has become popular
in schools and allows students with the opportunity to express and share their views with other
students as well as create profiles and online communities where they can share common
interests which results in creating a social identity for this specific situation.
“As a form of tele collaboration, social networking fosters online intercultural interaction
between students and different countries with a view to developing intercultural competence”
4
Another common theme with social networking is that the virtual environment is conducive for
learning to take place because it allows the student to take into account their own and their …show more content…
Individualism and Collectivism are dimensions in cultural variability.
Cultures that practice individualism emphasize the individual identity over the group identity and
are low context which focuses on explicit, precise and direct messages whereas cultures that
practice collectivism emphasize the group identity over the individual identity and are high
context which focuses on the implicit, ambiguous and indirect messages. People with low
context are more comfortable with trust online interaction like dating sites.
The internet usage of social media sites shows that social media has a social,
physical and cultural influence on society but are still “considered a barrier to communication
because even though the internet is a convenient and efficient medium to converse, emotions,
feelings and facial expressions are lost during communication...Peoples behaviors are not
detached from their cultural values, codes and patterns so even though people are influenced by
received messages on electronic mail, they are more likely to produce their message and interpret
the received message strongly in relation with their cultural
With the internationalization of technical exchanges and the increasing popularity of
social media in the everyday lives of today’s society, the need for cultural competence education
has become the focus of educators as well as the technical community. Cultural competence is
the capacity to change one’s attitudes, values and behavior so as to be open and flexible with
other cultures and has become increasingly crucial for individuals to survive in our globalized
1 The phenomenon of globalization has opened the possibility to decrease cultural
diversity through the means of technology and social media. “Culture is a learned system of
meanings that fosters a particular sense of shared identity-hood and community-hood among its group members. It is a complex from of reference that consists of a pattern of traditions, beliefs, values norms, symbols and meanings that are shared to varying degrees by interacting members of an identity group” (Ting-Toomey & Takai, 2006, pg. 691) There are many different cultures 2 worldwide which makes it imperative for everyone to foster intercultural communicative competence in order to take an active role in today’s world. Technology has been a contributor in making media the most influential in the opinions of the industrialized as well as developing countries. There are several web-based technologies such as email, chat and video conferencing that have become common means of communication with almost everyone around the world. Computer technologies developed for the purpose of learning a second language has been supporting the teaching of foreign languages since the 1960-70s and realized the potential offered by 21 century social media like Facebook, Twitter st and …show more content…
Web-based learning systems can be powerful tools that support collaborative
teaching and learning. Incorporating internet based social networking tools has become popular
in schools and allows students with the opportunity to express and share their views with other
students as well as create profiles and online communities where they can share common
interests which results in creating a social identity for this specific situation.
“As a form of tele collaboration, social networking fosters online intercultural interaction
between students and different countries with a view to developing intercultural competence”
4
Another common theme with social networking is that the virtual environment is conducive for
learning to take place because it allows the student to take into account their own and their …show more content…
Individualism and Collectivism are dimensions in cultural variability.
Cultures that practice individualism emphasize the individual identity over the group identity and
are low context which focuses on explicit, precise and direct messages whereas cultures that
practice collectivism emphasize the group identity over the individual identity and are high
context which focuses on the implicit, ambiguous and indirect messages. People with low
context are more comfortable with trust online interaction like dating sites.
The internet usage of social media sites shows that social media has a social,
physical and cultural influence on society but are still “considered a barrier to communication
because even though the internet is a convenient and efficient medium to converse, emotions,
feelings and facial expressions are lost during communication...Peoples behaviors are not
detached from their cultural values, codes and patterns so even though people are influenced by
received messages on electronic mail, they are more likely to produce their message and interpret
the received message strongly in relation with their cultural