Introduction Feedback

        I've been trying to narrow down what my paper will concern and I think one of the best ways to do this is to layout a nice introduction in the work you are going to do in the paper to follow. So, in that respect I am posting my introduction to get some feedback on if it clearly exposes the problem that I'm wrestling with at the current moment.

In recent scholarship and organizational communication, technical communicators and businesses come across issues that deal with the idea of glocalization. Glocalization is the adaptation of a product or service specifically to each locality or culture in which it is sold. However, glocalization purely as a marketing concept is outdated in the realm of technical and organizational communication. In order to expand the concept of glocalization in technical communication scholars have to consider cultural difference and ethics when designing brands and visuals glocally. Using Hofstede's cultural dimensions and Appadurai's flexible scapes to define culture, the ethics of visual design and pedagogy, and a case study of glocal branding, the intercultural and glocal can be brought together to produce a more culturally sensitive technical communication scholar and professional. 

QEP Thoughts and GC

I was going through the QEP briefly tonight and I noticed a chapter that stood out to me the most out of the (seemingly exhaustive) QEP.  Specifically, it was Chapter 3 in the QEP concerning student outcomes and a plan for implementation of the new QEP throughout the university. It is specifically concerned with upping some of the requirements for undergraduates to become globally and locally competent as it seems the incoming freshman are not necessarily up to par when it comes to diversity, culture, and multicultural interactions.

The concept or proposal that struck me the most is exactly what the QEP plans to do to achieve competency throughout the undergrad population. The big step is to require that students of all disciplines take 3 credit hours of multicultural coursework and 6 hours of writing intensive coursework. The writing intensive part of this proposal seems like a great idea as many engineers and STEM disciplines seem to want to downplay the amount of work and thought that goes in to a competently written document. Additionally, it would seem that the line of thought is that in order to be able to write across cultures and on the global level then a student should have a strong core in writing on the basic level of their own native language. However, the multicultural requirement troubles me for one reason: it doesn't really seem all that multicultural.

For instance, the specific language regarding this course says, "TTU students must complete a three-hour designated Multicultural Course that focuses on U.S. subcultures or the cultures of other societies. Students can fulfill the Multicultural Course requirement by selecting a course from 53 options that span the undergraduate curriculum from 'Introduction to Agricultural Education' to 'World Dance Forms' to 'Cultural Aspects of Food' to 'World of Egypt and the Near East.' They can also fulfill the requirement by completing an approved Study Abroad Program, with assessments by the TTU Study Abroad Office." (QEP, 2015). The focus on U.S. subcultures seems a bit out of place. What does that mean exactly? Not to pull down the QEP or those who designed it, but what makes U.S. subcultures part of being multicultural exactly? If we think about how Appadurai talks about villages and neighborhoods being constructed I could see some link there. There are many smaller pockets of tradition and culture from around the world in the U.S., but the "melting pot" concept is more like a "bowl of salad" where we are all kind of tossed together, but don't necessarily meld completely.

Also, we've talked briefly in class about how other cultures fund their students and faculty to go to other countries to work and study to truly develop competence in their workers and scholars. Here it says a student can fulfill that requirement by studying abroad, but there isn't any funding to give students so that they can actually afford the ridiculous cost to do that. I admire the development of the Global Communication center and appointing fellows every year who get to be involved in courses, but again, things like Intro to Sociology and Art Appreciation are valued higher over classes based in English it seems. I wonder if teaching in the FYC program (which every student has to take or get credit for) would qualify us to become fellows in a global communication context. I would say so, especially if it affords the opportunity to make connections and gather training to help mediate the fact that many of our FYC classes are heavily saturated with students from different cultures.

Overall, the state of Global Communication, to me, is that we are trying. It's not an easy task by any means. The fact that TTU has the foresight in the next 5 years or so to see that being able to produce workers with intercultural competence is important is a great stride. I haven't read the QEP 100%, so I can only comment on that one chapter, but overall I would like to study it further to see how it was constructed from a rhetorical standpoint.

As a side note: At the end of Chapter 3 is just a singular picture of a black student with no title or caption or anything. Kind of just....there. Is that what "multicultural" is to TTU? Is it representative?

Introduction and Thesis

This is the introduction and thesis from my paper. This is the unrevised version. I plan to reshape it to fit more closely with some of the readings in our class.

In recent scholarship and organizational communication, technical communicators and businesses come across issues that deal with the idea of glocalization. Glocalization is the adaptation of a product or service specifically to each locality or culture in which it is sold. The main issue I want to trace back through five rhetors is how visualization and images might mediate the cultural tensions that arise when a company or service tries to localize itself within a culture that is opposite of its own. By tracing issues of what defines a culture, globalization vs. localization, and how images and visualization play a part in defining how humans perceive the world. I want to try and show that visuals can potentially bridge the gaps in communication in cases of glocalization and different ways in which technical communicators and companies can approach ideas of localization.

It needs some cleaning up and reshaping, but I think it can work in the context of this course.

ICC and ELS

        The visits with ICC and ELS this week were extremely helpful and useful. Honestly, the service learning of this course has been a great way to see spaces where the readings and theories can be applied. Additionally, it is easy to see where some theories seem to fall short in comparison with others. For instance, Hofestde's dimensions are extremely useful in identifying broad differences and similarities between our cultures. However, they fall short in situations that complicate the flexibility and fluidity of personal and national identity. This is where Appadurai's flexible scapes are applicable. The two theories fill the gaps in each other's work and make a more well rounded approach to culture.
        At ICC, it was interesting to sit around the table and talk about ways we might put on a panel for international students. As far as I could tell, the Chinese professors had a little bit of input on the panel, but we dominated the conversations. I think their advice would be valuable. Also, it would have been really nice to have more international students involved. I liked the building itself and Kelley was really relativist in her approach to the panel itself. The way we are approaching the International Week I think is really a great idea and I'm glad we got to visit and develop a plan to talk about culture at the university.
        As for my visit to ELS, it was really eyeopening. One of the things I noticed was that there was a divide in the classroom. Apparently, there were "groups" that were separated almost right down the middle of the room according to nationalities. However, when the activities began I noticed a huge amount of collaboration being implemented between the groups. It seemed to be of the students own will and it was really a great thing to see! They were joking with each other and the teacher, but were still intent and excited about learning. The class we observed was classified as "advanced" so they were reading entire magazines and identifying concepts that might be complex like cause and effect. Things that seem common to insiders in the culture were being exposed in ways that I hadn't really thought of before. The prevalence of mobile devices in the room was large. There were a lot of students using their devices to look up certain things or just generally texting. There's always some sort of globalizing technology that seems to permeate culture. I think looking at ways to incorporate this technology in our own classrooms will help a bit with our culture's resistance to outside cultures and values.

Hofstede

        The ways in which Hofstede describes the "software" of the mind is an interesting concept to me that seems to make sense. I'm not sure if this is because I am oriented towards the implementation of technology in our society. However, the ways in which Hofstede explains that as children we are raised in certain contexts with certain people around us which we have no control over is definitely an idea that I ascribe to. In this way, we are all inscribed/programmed in such a way that there are certain values that we cannot rewrite completely (the onion model). However, as I said in class I like that Hofstede differentiates humans from the idea of the computer by saying even though we are programmed in certain ways that in other ways we are flexible (practice, ritual, language). I'm drawing a link here between the "Onion" model and the metaphor for the software of the mind because I think by using these two concepts we can observe a culture more perceptively and move in to the more ethnorelative realm that Bennett describes.
        As far as my reflective essay, I'm editing a chapter on how using the cloud composing software Google Drive is tied to globalization but is still firmly rooted in a localized practical use. Hofstede comments on the internet molding our world in to one "global village" and I disagree. The ways in which people use the internet and communication technologies are still localized. Composing in a digital age makes it much easier for people from two separate parts of the world to communicate, but the ways in which culture work, according to Hofstede's models, seem to make it impossible for us to all reside in the same "village" culturally. Although, I think that the embracing of these differences is very important. While we may not be able to resolve difference (nor should we) it is in the areas where cultures clash that seem to yield the most enlightening experiences and knowledge. I think my reflective essay will center around how the argument is made in my chapter concerning technologies that allow us cross communication and composing, but are still localized due to the nature of the way that culture is constructed. The values that are held individually aside from culture will always be present and separate and conjoin us. I wonder though, if software like Google Drive is a step towards helping people realize and negotiate cultures more readily than in the past.

Townhall Experiences

       So, this week we all went and did a townhall-esque meeting with the ELS students and took some of their questions. In general, I was very surprised at the types of questions and comments we received. The students at ELS are engaging with texts and "American" culture in such deep ways that many of us (at least from my own small view of the world) do not consider when thinking about our own culture. Many times throughout the talk I was faced with the question of what it was about our culture that made us different and to be confronted with something like that is eye opening as well as really humbling. For instance, when Abed was asking how we come to the decision to just move away from our parents and set out on our own life and career path. He couldn't fathom that line of thought from his perspective. The collectivism instilled in his culture is so vastly separate and different than our individualistic culture that my "software" is programmed on a different plane of existence almost.
        This also brings me to trying to delineate where our cultural identity and culture actually split. The ways in which I saw myself separating my own personal cultural identity from what it means to be "American" were eye opening. I don't really know what it is to be totally "American" from the perspective of the outside world or other cultures and this townhall has pushed me to the limits and boundaries of what it means to be American. Also, there was the question of what the "American dream" really means. It used to mean something static like the nuclear family. A house, a car, two kids. As society changed and as the context of our culture changed with things like glocalization and world trade our idea of what the dream is has changed drastically. Also, I think it is tied intensely to things like class, race and gender. On top of that even, we have an individual idea of what it means to "have made it" in the United States. This identity/culture split isn't as dichotomous as Hofstede might say, but at the same time there are some rhetorical boundaries that separate the two. Although our software is affected by the context and culture that surrounds us, we still hold deep values that are instilled in us from when we can't remember as children as Hofstede points out.
        I'd like to end with a question or two that has been rattling around in my brain since we left the meeting. I wonder how the Q&A session would've gone had the students not been told to prepare questions that were connected to their own readings. We had a lot of questions for them that were concerned with the societal and cultural ways in which a foreigner might have to use to navigate what is most undoubtedly unfamiliar to them just as their culture is unfamiliar to us. I'm also concerned with the power structure that happened in the townhall. Dr. Graves was kind of a panoptic sort of presence that kept the students "in line" so to speak and I felt at times she might have guided them in their questions and possibly suppressed some ideas or questions we might have gotten. Maybe I was the only one who felt that? Finally, I wonder why Rich and I were targeted specifically for the question covering divorce rate in the US. Are men the deciders of that kind of situation in that particular student's culture? Arranged marriages are a huge deal around the world. That difference where women and men choose who to marry must be a large change. Did anyone else want to know whether or not any of them would stay in the US? In Lubbock even? There were so many question I had that were not answered in that kind of format. If it were possible to split them from a power source such as a teacher, I wonder if we'd get more candid responses....

Hofstede survey

        I'm having a bit of a hard time with the question this week. In general, sometimes I feel like when I talk about cultural difference and similarity I'm coming off as ethnocentric and I really don't try. There are a lot of different criteria we've covered in the classroom so far about what makes a person "intercultural", but as I've never been outside of the US I feel like I'm at a loss to some extent going in to the service learning of this course. I know that actually becoming part of this service learning will enlighten me and help me move more in to the ethnorelative side of the equation and I wanted to preface my post with this sort of side thought to help frame what I say in a way that doesn't sound too harsh one way or the other. Anyway, let me get down to how I think we can use Hofstede's dimensions of national culture to shape a set of questions for a survey.

        I think one of the hugest dimensions that Hofstede uses is the dimension of individualism/collectivism. The US being a highly individualistic culture is one of the hurdles I think, especially from the organizational perspective, that we will encounter when doing our work. The directness of our culture, even in university, is a question in and of itself. What do the students think the expectation of their work will be? Do they envision a more group oriented work environment or do they expect to be tossed in the deep end, so to speak? Our culture centers around self motivation and self sufficiency to the point of fanaticism in some instances. The ideal of "American exceptionalism" is a real thing to consider when discussing the differences and similarities of burden of work between cultures. Another dimension that is tied in to the idea of collectivism and individualism (I mean, there's a reason Hofstede picked all of these right?) is the power distance dimension. The different power distances between cultures is huge. For instance, the way in which we perceive men and women's roles in relationships. Rich has said in class we will see a lot of men interrupting women and other people in general because in certain cultures the power lies mostly with the men of the realm. My biggest survey type question that will come from this dimension in relation to the students actually entering in to the American university system is: What do you feel the relationship between the student and teacher will be when you enter TTU? Will it be similar to the way their culture gives lessons? What is different? Will it be an issue if the instructor is a woman? These are all questions that relate to Hofstedes idea of power distance just on a micro level of the classroom. I must admit, I'm completely blind going in to this sort of situation. I think some of Appadurai's scapes about the economic and political sphere that these students come from will help me in developing some type of heuristic to start from, but the questions I've asked above seem most clear to me in relation to Hofstede. As we can see here a lot of the dimensions cross over in to one another as the male/female roles also refer to the masculine/feminine traits in a culture.

We might also think about the uncertainty factor in things like using and adopting the idea of the "hybrid" course. We didn't really talk about it in class the other day, but our Composition program relies on the burgeoning principle of hybridity between the classroom and the virtual world aka the internet. How common is this concept to students from different cultures? More specifically, are the students prepared to learn and adopt the technology and mindset that goes along with this concept? I think that the ELS students are learning English to proficiency will play a large part in this because I'm not actually sure how much accommodation we have for students in translation etc. But this idea of only seeing a class once a week and then giving them the bulk of the work on their own time seems foreign even to some students who go to school in America first. Also, how will they address the instructor through email? Will they be comfortable with the one on one office hours? How these dimension cross each other is something that is interesting and I'll be paying special attention to in the coming weeks.