Communications and cultures in the global era

The unit covers how people from different cultural backgrounds communicate or miscommunicate and how they can overcome any difficulties, resulting from cultural diversities.

Today, intercultural interactions are part of everyday encounters in most work places. It is essential for future workforces to be equipped with knowledge and skills for cross-cultural communications. These are part of 'global competence' of the workforce.

For effective learning outcomes, the unit employs interdisciplinary insights from communications, anthropology, cultural studies and psychology (e.g. E. Hall, W. Gudykunst). The unit also touches upon how ethnic groups utilise the media to express their identities, with reference to migrants in Australia, e.g. Chinese, Korean, Southeast Asian migrants.