Any kind of communication, more so if it is an interpersonal one, entails a certain level of cultural communication. When a Western country offers its technological know-how, political and economic concepts and organisational skills, it is obviously offering a part of its culture to the developing countries. This cultural exchange determines, in a big way, the success or failure of a communication process.
In fact, as Boeren and Epskamp [1992: 234] say, professional communicators should keep two factors in mind: firstly, culture comprises a constantly changing pattern of inter-related elements such as relationships, opinions and actions. Secondly, you cannot move one element without disturbing the entire pattern. As such, one has to be doubly careful when indulging in such interpersonal cultural exchange.
These cultural values are inculcated in our minds through a social process, namely education. This can again take place in three ways: formal education or the knowledge acquired through schooling; non-formal education or the out-of-school education; and the informal education that is truly life-long whereby we acquire values, attitudes, skills and knowledge from our daily experiences and the surrounding ambience. Thus, along with the cultural context, the level and mode of education also influences development communication processes. The latter mirrors the ideological and cultural pattern of the society.
Casmir [1991: 28] says, “ We use cultural models to simplify, organise, and interpret our perception of reality.” This is the reason why a certain group of people might see certain things that others might fail to notice, even though both are exposed to identical situations. As such, the new paradigm of development suggests total involvement of the target audience in the communications project, so that their perceptions, attitudes, values and knowledge are taken into account. It also recommends solving problems from within the system rather than imposing “new and allegedly superior systems” from the outside [Ibid: 32].
During the feed-forward stage when the sender is gathering data on the target population, it is important to find out what kind of programme content the local mass media catering to that community has on offer. For example, Indians like listening to film music and the Caribbeans like to dance to calypso music. Accordingly, the communicator should choose his or her strategy of communication because similar products are culturally popular with the local people. In one classic case, it was found that when the use of contraceptives was publicised in the television by two trendy teenage pop idols, it caught on readily with the younger generation; the images coaxed them to think twice before making love without a contraceptive [Boeren and Epskamp, 1992: 240].
But in its bid for globalisation, the Western media is often found to impose its way of programming and programme content on the developing world. With the concentration and convergence of the media, it is the big media conglomerates based in the West that control the world media. As a result, the Western media is often accused of destroying the indigenous cultural values and beliefs of the Third World. This method of moulding and manipulating the culture amounts to social irresponsibility on the part of the mass media.
Again, the same symbols and motifs may mean different things to different people. The most obvious real-life example that comes to mind is of this person who wears a T-shirt with the Indian Swastik symbol on it. When he wears it in India, it is a fashion statement; but when he wears the same T-shirt in Germany, people frown at him and give him unfriendly looks. This is because the now-banned Nazi symbol looks very similar to the Indian Swastik.
Thus, we can conclude that the cultural context greatly influences any form of communication. It is the role of the mass media to bridge this cultural gap by being sensitive to the needs and beliefs of the people it is catering to.
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