Interracial Communication

Interracial Communication: Theory Into Practice, Third Edition, by Mark P. Orbe and Tina M. Harris, guides readers in applying the contributions of recent communication theory to improving everyday communication among the races. The authors offer a comprehensive, practical foundation for dialogue on interracial communication, as well as a resource that stimulates thinking and encourages readers to become active participants in dialogue across racial barriers. Part I provides a foundation for studying interracial communication and includes chapters on the history of race and racial categories, the importance of language, the development of racial and cultural identities, and current and classical theoretical approaches. Part II applies this information to interracial communication practices in specific, everyday contexts, including friendships, romantic relationships, the mass media, and organizational, public, and group settings. This Third Edition includes the latest data, new research studies and examples, all-new photos, and important new topics.

As the racial and ethnic landscape of the United States shifts, interracial communication plays an increasingly crucial role. The sociopolitical climate has impacted identities, relationships, media, and organizations—challenging the possibility of having transformative engagement about race. Power differences affected by race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, ability, age, and geography are sometimes invisible. Competent interracial communication is key to alleviating polarized interactions and addressing the unequal treatment of microcultures. Part I of the book provides essential background, including the history of race, the importance of communication, the development and intersectionality of racial and ethnic identities, and models and theories of interracial communication. Part II applies this information to communication practices in specific, everyday contexts: global racial hierarchies and colorism, friendships/ romantic relationships, communication in the workplace, interracial conflict, and race and ethnicity in the media. The concluding chapter outlines pathways to meaningful change and invites readers to become active participants in dialogue to facilitate working through differences. The authors offer comprehensive, readable, and insightful coverage of pressing issues. They focus on communication as vital to removing barriers to understanding. Becoming proactive in eliminating racism on a personal level is a step toward the macrolevel changes required to dismantle systemic racism. The fourth edition is a socially relevant resource for facilitating interracial dialogue to create a positive climate to work together to achieve social justice.

This book presents a review and synthesis of research on communication patterns between blacks and whites in the United States, developing the overall theme that race relations remain difficult due to continuing racial discrimination and a lack of extensive interracial contact. The election of Barack Obama as president, however, reveals some important shifts that may be occurring in contemporary society. Almost unimaginable only a few years ago, the election of an African American to the highest office may signal that communication about race and race-related issues is becoming less problematic in current race relations. This book concludes that multiculturalism and interracial contact offer the most viable approaches to understanding and improving interracial communication. The book is geared toward scholars and students and is relevant for classroom adoption in courses ranging from interracial communication to intercultural communication.

This handbook summarises the state of the art in international, cultural and developmental communication and sets the agenda for future research.

This text is a practical guide that provides readers with effective approaches to communication theories and strategies and offers a wealth of tools for enhancing communication both in Canada and abroad. Informed by the authors’ intersection of cultural identities and lived experiences, Intercultural Communication demonstrates how communicative practices are established and influenced within societal realms. Readers’ understanding of culture is widened beyond discussions of race and ethnicity by critically examining factors like age, familial roles, sex, gender, socioeconomic status, and disability. Guided through real and complex scenarios, this text explores how different social and cultural practices present implications for communication, demonstrating how to manage conversations in appropriate and meaningful ways. Key topics include verbal and non-verbal communication, cultural values, self-awareness, and digital communications. Case studies, practical activities, and thought-provoking questions accompany each chapter, helping students to explore their own attitudes and actions through self-reflection. This invaluable and comprehensive guide is ideal for students enrolled in intercultural communication and cross-cultural communication courses, including studies in business, education, social work, health care, and law enforcement.

In the fully updated Seventh Edition of Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, bestselling author James W. Neuliep provides a clear contextual model (visually depicted by a series of concentric circles) for examining communication within cultural, microcultural, environmental, sociorelational, and perceptual contexts. Students are first introduced to the broadest context—the cultural component of the model—and progress chapter by chapter through the model to the most specific dimensions of communication. Each chapter focuses on one context and explores the combination of factors within that context, including setting, situation, and circumstances. Highlighting values, ethnicity, physical geography, and attitudes, the book examines means of interaction, including body language, eye contact, and exchange of words, as well as the stages of relationships, cross-cultural management, intercultural conflict, and culture shock.

Translating Theory into Practice Globalizing Intercultural Communication: A Reader introduces students to intercultural communication within the global context, and equips them with the knowledge and understanding to grapple with the dynamic, interconnected and complex nature of intercultural relations in the world today. This reader is organized around foundational and contemporary themes of intercultural communication. Each of the 14 chapters pairs an original research article explicating key topics, theories, or concepts with a first-person narrative that brings the chapter content alive and invites students to develop and apply their knowledge of intercultural communication. Each chapter’s pair of readings is framed by an introduction highlighting important issues presented in the readings that are relevant to the study and practice of intercultural communication and end-of-chapter pedagogical features including key terms and discussion questions. In addition to illuminating concepts, theories, and issues, authors/editors Kathryn Sorrells and Sachi Sekimoto focus particular attention on grounding theory in everyday experience and translating theory into practice and actions that can be taken to promote social responsibility and social justice.

The Encyclopedia of Communication Theory provides students and researchers with a comprehensive two-volume overview of contemporary communication theory. Reference librarians report that students frequently approach them seeking a source that will provide them with a quick overview of a particular theory or theorist - just enough to help them grasp the general concept or theory and its relation to the discipline as a whole. Communication scholars and teachers also occasionally need a quick reference for theories. Edited by the co-authors of the best-selling textbook on communication theory and drawing on the expertise of an advisory board of 10 international scholars and nearly 200 contributors from 10 countries, this work finally provides such a resource. More than 300 entries address topics related not only to paradigms, traditions, and schools, but also metatheory, methodology, inquiry, and applications and contexts. Entries cover several orientations, including psycho-cognitive; social-interactional; cybernetic and systems; cultural; critical; feminist; philosophical; rhetorical; semiotic, linguistic, and discursive; and non-Western. Concepts relate to interpersonal communication, groups and organizations, and media and mass communication. In sum, this encyclopedia offers the student of communication a sense of the history, development, and current status of the discipline, with an emphasis on the theories that comprise it.