Analysis of Guo-Ming Chen’s “The Impact of New Media on Intercultural Communication in Global Context
As technology has rapidly advanced, the ways in which humans communicate with each other have been dramatically altered. These technological advances have given birth to a variety of new forms of media, which include a multiplicity a communicatory devices including everything from mass media and social media, to digitization and data sharing. Within the journal China Media Research, (Volume 8.2, pg. 1-12, 2012) Professor Guo-Ming Chen of the University of Rhode Island authored, “The Impact of New Media on Intercultural Communication in a Global Context”. Within this piece, Chen illustrates the powerful influence that new media possesses within intercultural relationships, which in turn, have created new communities that challenge traditional norms. Chen presents her argument in a clear and concise manner, beginning with a brief history of communication studies, paralleled with how new media has been a dominant cause of globalization. This introduction establishes an outline from which she thoroughly expand her thesis (which I have previously noted) surrounding the theme of intercultural communication. This particular article aids the reader to further understand, and fully comprehend the difficulties that exist within technology’s effect on intercultural communication. Chen’s ideas relate to many of the course themes of CMNS 110, but specifically in Unit 2’s subsection titled the “Cultural Model vs. Transmission Model” of communication, which will further be elaborated within this paper. Throughout the entirety of her article, Chen aims to answer the overarching question: in what ways do sources of new media (ie. social media, data sharing, etc..) affect cross-cultural communication? She first begins to answer this daunting question by drawing on examples of the globalized world stating that “new media is the main force of accelerating the trend of globalization in human society”(1). At first one might not see the relationship between globalization,