A Comparison of Modernist and Postmodernist Accounts of Cross-Cultural Communication between African Societies and the United States

Abstract

A postmodernist perspective is suggested as more appropriate than a modernist perspective for purposes of examining cross-cultural communication between African societies and the United States. By assuming a single universal truth and an instrumentalist view of communication, a modernist perspective portrays this process ineffectively as a one-way process of positive influence with the United States as benefactor while African societies are beneficiaries. However, a postmodernist perspective assumes multiple truths or realities and a constitutive view of communication, permitting two major conclusions: (1) cross-cultural communication between African cultures and the United States may have mutual positive influence, and (2) U.S. society can benefit from the appropriation of even more aspects of African cultures.