Cultural Identity and Modes of Communication

Abstract

The concept of culture has long been virtually ignored in development and communication theories. In this chapter, a new perspective on culture has been developed. It defines cultures as social settings in which a certain reference framework has taken concrete form or has been institutionalized and orients and structures the interaction and communication of people within this historical context. Therefore, in the patterning of their social existence, people continually make principally unconscious choices that are directed by the applicable intracultural values and options. Cultural identity refers to the constitution and cultivation of a reality on the basis of particular values, a reality in which the value system and the social system are completely interwoven and imbued with the activity of each other. I focus on two aspects or levels of the relationship between forms of cultural identity and modes of production and communication that build upon this new perception of culture: (1) the micro level of culture and communication—the relationship between modes of communication and the social structure; and (2) the macro level of international communication—that is, the cultural imperialism problematic.