Intercultural communication

One of the main reasons for cultural barriers is due to stereotypical views. After the 9/11 attacks many people assumed that sikhs were part of the orthdox muslims that followed Osama. They were not able to differentiate between the 2 because of the similiarities between them. Both tie their hair up in a turban and have long beards. However their style of tieing their turbans were differnt but as the theory, assumption of similarity goes, people refuse to see the true difference where they exisit. People were too hurt by what happened and just needed to vent out their frustrations and becasue of this many innocent sikhs died. This was basically a case of fundamental attribution error. However recently the media has started showing an advertisement by kenneth cole in which he has a sikh student talking about his experiences. The advertisement is used to publisize shoes and kenneth cole has done exactly that. His logo is that ‘we all walk in different shoes’, he has smartly used this concept in getting people all the world to know more about sikhs.

The other factor that can conribute to intercultural barriers is, anxiety and withdrawal. This is when people experience a culture shock. It is when they have to step out of their comfort zone. For example if i were to tell people living in a weternized country like america that till today in india women get burnt or ill treated just for not giving their in-laws dowry, they would be shocked. This is because people from america are individualist, they believe in freedom for all and equality so when they hear of this, they would obciously be shocked.

The last point that i would like to mention about is that lanuguage can be a huge hindrance when people of different cultures communicate. They would probably then have to resort to using non verbal communication. Actually it is not only related to lanugage if a persons accent is too thick, it can cause confusion as well. Many a times people want to endorse their products in another country but what many seem to forget is to check what their name of the product means the other country. The link ahead will show you some of these blunders.

http://www.ideaswise.com/international_advertising.html.