Category: Uncategorized

Communication strategies that may be more effective to reach out to people that are less privileged economically, socially, and politically:

• Listen to the people and hear what issues are considered relevant and what could be meaningful social changes for them
• Use localized communication (using, for example, metaphors with locally-centered examples, well-known stories, and dialects), in a way that the message resonates with its target audience.
• Empower the audience not only with the media content but also facilitating practices that can improve their lives. Minga Peru’s, for example, not only developed a great relationship system promoting an open dialogue about human rights but also allowed a less privileged group to enhance their lives by training them to have leadership skills, to manage environmental resources and to generate income from different work activities.

Non-profit organization: https://www.sosma.org.br/ – SOS Mata Atlântica

The SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation was created in 1986 as a non-governmental and non-profit organization, with the goal of defending what remains of Mata Atlântica in Brazil.

• Developed a game about sustainability and Brazil’s Atlantic forest preservation and partnered with schools to promote the game among children in the technology class of private and public schools.
• Partnered with The Body Shop and it’s promoting a cause-marketing campaign that will result in donations for the NGO
• Focuses on projects that encourage children to learn how to preserve natural resources in both urban and rural areas

Lorena and Melissa

• It is unrealistic to expect from a single employee to master all different four literacies
• To be an expert in these four specific literacies means to be local
• At the same time, professional communicators of multinational companies need to assimilate the literacies in order to understand the foreign culture (ex: understand new target audience while creating products strategy on international campaigns) and also as a reflection of their own cultures and values.
• Melissa workplace: you have to be good at a variety of skill sets but if they need an expert for a specific work (cultural aspect/language barrier) they will hire someone outside of the company for that
• “Know your people”: the dialogical approach is not always the best idea to promote team integration inside of a company

Lorena & Paige 

• Ensure that the agency will find a solution to the problem
• Try to understand the issue from the clients’ point of view – asks questions
• Review the case and tell them that the agency will find other ways to keep the publicity on
• Take the responsibility but stress the need for an open dialogue regarding budget and communication planning
• Apologize for what is happening
• Research the clients’ historical background
• Set up an in-person meeting can add more time to give their answers

 

Lorena & Marlee

• Theory – Dialogue as building a culture of peace;
• Dialogue approach in feminist movement – the example of inviting men to the conversation. Should men directly participate in the discussions involving feminism and marginalized groups?
• With men involved, we think that the awareness of the movement would increase –  they would probably spread the word through their own built relationships with other men and increase the chances of more supporters
• Localization theory applied to PLNs – you have to build relationships in order to understand the culture that you are in.
• Culture = people
• The concept of social justice itself has to be studied before any action is taken and considered relative to the people it would benefit.
• How: when you apply PLNs with a “social justice” goal is important to go through all levels of relationships to understand the issue – don’t limit your research on the people in powerful positions – get to know the community needs and interests (connectivism).
• Listen, understanding your surroundings, connect with people.

Lorena & Paige

• Cultural can be limiting to the feminist ideology. Ex: U.S. – Trump Era: white men take the standard and diminish the credibility of powerful movements.
• Economical and Political – people who diminish the movement, as well as white feminists doesn’t feel the burden of it.
• Feminist: different categories in different cultures. Some issues like lack of basic resources can have a huge impact on our perception of the movement’s urgency.
• Individualistic X Collaborative way of leading a movement differs
• Kenya: relationships create a positive agency that allows them to be in the movement. It is different when you think about the feminist movement in the U.S.

Lorena and Sarita

Angelova & Riazantseva’s Article

• Convergence – localized communication strategies
• Find a common ground, make it relevant to your own cultures experience (p. 511)

Atiqa Hachimi, and Karla Scott’s Articles

• Divergence –  (p. 320 Scott) maintain your voice and visibility in the conversation
• Finding your identity and not rejecting the fact that you should express it
• Stance-taking (pg 289 Hachimi) can challenge the subversive ideology

Company: Subway

Subway US: https://www.subway.com/en-US

Subway Brazil: https://www.subway.com/pt-BR

What specific features regarding linguistic and cultural communication designs do you see as more prominent? How do they represent the local values/cultural specifics (i.e. localization)? In what ways does this website adopt (or not) effective communication strategies for the targeted audiences?

I was surprised when I first saw Subway’s Brazilian website, and how it is really different from the US one.

Why:

• It has a very weak branding appealing compared to the US version
• Its focus is on the “information” and not in the lifestyle beyond the product
• Two of the highlights of the website is a call to action to the available careers at subway, and how to own a local franchise, what can lead us to an interpretation of a website not really focused on the client’s experience
• B2B website instead of B2C
• Its design is very “simple” – not minimalist
• Content focus on the deals they offer
• Popular words/ superlatives

• Sarita Lee, Jason Wu, and Lorena Moreira.

What challenges (or strengths you can utilize based on your experiences) do you see on the way to conducting an ethnographic study in the cross-cultural or cross-language business context? How do you plan to overcome them?

 

Challenges:

• Recognize the interviewee cultural background to understand and lead the discussion. It is even more challenging when you are not familiar with other culture involved in the process.
• Language: when there is no translation for specific expressions/words among the languages involved.
• When the interviewer in a non-native speaker of the language placed in the interview: lack of confidence/ courage to lead the discussion
• When the interviewee in a non-native speaker of the language placed in the interview: core interview content may be missed

Overcome:

• Be prepared for the interview: research about the theme, possible topics, plan the questions and share them in advance with the interviewee (so she/he can also be more confident about the process), and cultural background of the interviewee.
• Understand both positions, yours and interviewees, in the process
• Be open-minded and have patience
• Different from a more casual discussion, the personal feelings, and beliefs must be placed behind the interview influence so the main goal of the interview can be accomplished

 

 

 

Sarita Lee

Object:

Challenge Coin – Keychain

 

What is:

Traditional coin of Navy Chief Petty Officers

 

Origin:

Bahrain/ 2015 – when she was initiated as a Chief Petty Officers

 

Meaning:

Among the different coins that she collects, this specific coin is the most important. It has the three core values of the Navy: honor, courage, and commitment. It means being always faithful to the navy.

 

Every chief has to carry a coin at all times. The origin of this tradition comes from the 2nd World War when a Navy pilot was shot and saved by the coin that was in his neck.

 

Fun fact:

If you are in somewhere that you don’t know anyone, you can recognize other chiefs by their coins.

 

But, be aware! If a group of chiefs goes to a bar, each one of them must tap their coins and if someone is missing her/his coin, she/he must pay a drink for all of the others.

 

Others coins:

Sarita just came back from the annual initiation, that included the Final Pinning Ceremony (promotion) and she has various coins in her backpack as well. One that is very interesting – and beautiful – is the one from Carl Brashear, the first black navy diver

 

Highlight:

The coins represent communities and its an representative/ integration artifact. The trading and collection of coins are now part of the navy tradition.

 

Traveler:

Sarita has so many different stories from personal and professional experiences. In 2015, her initiation year, she lived in the USS Ponce Deployment ship for a whole year and traveled a lot. Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Jebel Ali and Djibouti were some of the destinations. She also had to face various challenges, for example, sharing a small sleeping compartment with 14 women in total.

In what ways do you feel challenged or privileged as a communicator across cultures and languages?

As an international student, the language itself becomes a challenging factor when I have to face a new situation, especially when it involves a new environment. The English dominance and well-discussed “authority” is still a struggle that I encounter on a daily basis in both the academic and business fields.

On the other hand, I feel privileged to have the opportunity to face the challenges from a different perspective, due to my prior educational and professional background. That allows me to understand my possible issues with language, learning and working as part of a much broader and complex cultural framework.

Based on your readings for this week (communicating across borders), what strategies do you find useful and supportive when communicating with people across borders?

What I found the most interesting part was that we have to understand that there is no “right” or “wrong” ideas, just different cultural settings. So the one thing that I am sure that will serve for my entire life from now is to always try to analyze it first by how do I perceive one situation, according to my background, in order to understand the other people’s opinion/action. Also, that I am constantly shaping and being shaped by this cross-cultural lifetime experience.

Further, I believe that perceiving the language with the concept as a cultural component available to who may need or want to use this as a way of communication and connection, instead of an “object” of possession of a native speaker, will help me in the everyday struggle with English or any other foreign language that I might use.