Culture

1. Jak narody porozumiewają się ze sobą w komunikacji
międzykulturowej i komunikowaniu medialnym
[International communication and media communication between nations]
Jerzy Mikułowski Pomorski
Kraków: Universitas, 2007
Selected chapters abridged and summarised
by Intercultural Communication Course students
English Studies Jagiellonian University
2012/13

2. Culture and Values
by Klaudia Matras and Sylwia Niewczas

3. Outline of the presentation:
1. Culture and values
– Traditions and values
– Cultural values
– Values desired and demanded
– Questions about values
2. Culture as communication
– Culture = communication
– Culture = the mental system of an individual
– The way culture is expressed
– The concept of fragmentation
– What are the results of the fragmentation

4. Did you know that…
• As David Elliston Allen1 observed in 1960s, there were some serious
differences in the behaviour of the British living in the North and South of
the country.
• For example, the way of brewing and drinking tea in the southern and
northern parts of the UK was quite different. People from the southern
part would boil water in kettles and then brew it in teapots, whereas people
from the northern part would boil water over the fire.
• The way of drinking tea turned out to be different as well.
• People from the North sat by the fireplace to create more intimate
atmosphere and people from the South sat around the table to talk face to
face.
1 Allen, D. E. (1969) British Tastes: An Enquiry into the Likes and Dislikes of the Consumer. Panther: Manchester.

5. Traditions as the source of human
behaviour
• David Elliston Allen claims that the source of the
difference in drinking tea is in various traditions:
agricultural in the South and pastoral in the North.
• According to Allen that is where we should look for
the source of human behaviour: traditions and
ways of living derived from traditions.

6. Cultural values
• Human being raised in a certain culture is taught some rules that keep the social order
and direct people‟s thoughts and actions. These rules are cultural values.
• According to Olechnicki1:
cultural values are established points of view on what is desired and valuable in a certain
society.
• According to Geert Hofstede2:
cultural values are our reactions to the environment we live in, and we are taught those
values before we are 10-11. There are some among them that create the concept of a
desired social model. Hofstede claims that cultural values are irrational, even though
they shape our subjective view on rationality.
He illustrates him claim by saying that we first like something and then we try to support
the claim that it is right to like it.
.
1 Olechnicki, K. and Załęcki, P. (1997) Słownik socjologiczny. Graffiti, BC:Toruń.
2 Hofstede, G. (1998) „A case for comparing apples with oranges. International differences in values‟. In: International Journal of
Comparative Sociology.

7. Questions concerning values that every
culture should be able to answer:
1. Human nature: are people good or bad?
2. People and their attitude towards nature: dependent, independent or
having the power over nature?
3. Time: past, present, future?
4. Space (in what kind of space people live and towards which space are
they oriented by their culture): public, private, public and private ?
5. Activeness: is it enough to just exist in a society or maybe to exist
means to create?
6. Society (people’s attitude towards power): authoritarian, group,
individual?

8. Types of values according to Schwartz1
Type of value Characteristic features Representative values
Power Social status and prestige, control or domination over people and
resources
Social power, affluence, authority
Achievement Personal success Successes, abilities, ambitions, influences
Hedonism Pleasure or one‟s own sensual experience Enjoyment, life satisfaction
Excitement Excitement, novelty, life full of challenges Courage, eventful and exciting life
Independence Independence in thinking and acting: choice, creation Creativity, freedom, curiosity, independence, choice of one‟s own targets
Universalism Tolerance, consideration,
protectiveness towards other people and nature
Social justice, equality, liberalism, wisdom, environment preservation
Security Confidence, harmony, social
stability
Family safety, country security, social order, cleanliness, kindness
Kindness Kind behaviour and help for relatives, friends and people with
whom we stay in close touch
Assistance, forgiveness, loyalty, genuine friendliness
Tradition Respect, commitment,
dedication,
Respect for tradition, moderation, piety, humility
Conformism Respect for other people and acceptance of social norms and
rules
Obedience, discipline, kindness, respect for parents and elderly people
1 Schwartz, S. H., Verkasalo, M., Antonosky, A. and Sagic, L. (1997) „Value priorities and social desirability: Much
substance, some style‟. In: British Journal of Social Psychology 36.

9. Culture = Communication
Edward T. Hall1 defines culture as the
content of interpersonal communication.
According to him, “the human mind is
internalized culture”. It means that culture
exists both inside and outside the human
mind .
Hall equates culture with communication,
claiming that „communication is
culture, and culture is
communication’.
1 Hall, E. T. (1984) Poza kulturą [Beyond culture]. PWN.

10. Culture = the mental system of an individual
• Geert Hoftstede looks for culture in a man‟s attitude towards oneself
and the surrounding world. He argues that culture is ”the mental
system of an individual”.
• According to Hoftstede1, the contents of mental programs are values
and attitudes and they have both individual and collective character.
As far as the nation is concerned, the researcher claims that
national cultures are synonyms for what previous generations used
to call the national character. Differences between cultural contents
are the result of different environments, in which these nations have
been shaped and they have functioned to this day.
1 Op. Cit.

11. The way culture is expressed
Culture is expressed by three communication phenomena:
Control, Interaction and Expression.
1. Control refers to a one-way activity aiming at conveying cultural
contents and strengthening cultural values.
2. Interaction can be defined as the process of collective and
democratic search for the principles of social cohabitation. The
product of interaction are lifestyles, being the effect of
cooperation between participants and reactions to the
environment.
3. Expression refers to the individual expressing their own views
and opinions without indicating the direct recipient. However, it
does not mean that expression is communication without a
recipient because the recipient, in fact, is the subject itself.

12. These three forms of culture expression are
associated with three forms of human existence
such as:
• a member of the social system managed by
distant institutions – control;
• a member of smaller groups and circles-
interaction;
• an individual who can combine his/her own
needs and desires with the requirements of
social life- expression.

13. The concept of fragmentation
• An interesting phenomenon which we can observe these days is fragmentation
of human relations. According to Philip M. Napoli1, fragmentation refers to the
process in which a traditional ”mass audience” is divided into smaller and more
homogenous segments.
• Napoli argues that the media simplifies the audience fragmentation.
Fragmentation in the media takes two forms: intra-media fragmentation and
inter- media fragmentation. The former has to do with the expansion of medium
options to provide various contents, whereas the latter refers to the increase in
the amount of the media in the media system, which, in turn, allows a recipient
to choose from a variety of channels.
1 Napoli, P. M. (2003) Audience Economics (pp. 135-136). Columbia University Press: New York.

14. According to Anna Ohanyan1, in the contemporary world, there are three
types of fragmentation of human relations:
• sectorial fragmentation– division into various domains,
• geographic fragmentation- division into various regions,
• social fragmentation- division into various groups.
1 Ohanyan, A. (2003) „Nationalism in globalising context: governance focused intervention in the developing
world.‟ In: International Journal on World Peace 3/1.

15. What are the results of the
fragmentation process?
• As a result of the fragmentation processes a traditional version of
society in which people are very close and important to each other
has gradually collapsed. Nevertheless, it does not mean that a human
being lives in isolation, i.e. without any connection with the rest of
the society. What we can observe these days is the transformation
of an old industrial society and its culture into a new, modern type of
a society, where an individual can be located both in real and in
virtual space.

16. Discussion
1. Can you think of behaviours similar to those given at the
beginning of this presentation that derive from traditions in
your country?
2. Analyse questions concerning values that each culture
should be able to answer. What would be the answers for
your culture?
3. How do you understand the process of fragmentation? Do
you think that the contemporary world is more globalised or
fragmented?
4. Explain in your own words the phrase ”culture is
communication and communication is culture”.