Cross-national Communication Research Articles

Post-truth public diplomacy: a detrimental trend of cross-national communication and how open societies address it

ABSTRACT This article divulges a new form of public diplomacy with post-truth content overseen by host countries to influence the cognitive and affective condition of publics in target countries. The goals of the practice are multifaceted and the negative impact on international communication and open societies is detrimental. All relevant concepts intertwined with the practice of post-truth public diplomacy (PTPD) that range from public diplomacy 2.0, post-truth content, international information flow, cyberspace issues, to unveiled PTPD cases are discussed in detail. Moreover, a four-fold typology of PTPD flow across national borders is illustrated for a better, comprehensive understanding of the PTPD terrain. Solution to address the alarming trend is proposed, which consists of five routes: detection and deterrence of PTPD sources, proactive monitoring and managing the communication space, increasing saturation of truthful information and antidotes of PTPD, media and information literacy education for target peoples, and maintenance of free cross-border communication for publics. The implications and ramifications of PTPD practice are also deliberated.

Views on the Differences of Translation Strategies, Methods and Skills

This thesis is an introduction of "translation strategies", "translation methods" and "translation skills". the author mainly comes up with some features on translation. Due to the fact that translation is a form of language, in which some language information is transformed into another one. In other words, translation is the communicative behavior of converting information. It is a basic communication tool for cross-cultural and cross-national communication. At the same time, it is also a comprehensive language activity integrating sight, listening, speaking, writing and reading. In addition to excellent bilingual ability and "miscellaneous" knowledge, translators should also have the ability to process verbal and non-verbal information in a fixed time, the ability to understand, shorthand or memorize. Of course, it is also very important to master certain techniques. Hence, to grasp and distinguish "translation strategies", "translation methods" and "translation Skills" will contribute to translaters' ability to translate some form of language. This thesis will be supposed to serve translators and make them get a clearer understanding of "translation strategies", "translation methods" and "translation Skills". And further more, translators are able to make use of "translation Skills" under the direction of "translation strategies".

PRINCIPLES OF SELECTION AND ORGANIZATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE FORMATION OF ENGLISH PROFESSIONALLY ORIENTED COMPETENCE IN SPEECH OF FUTURE DOCTORS IN POLYCULTURAL ENVIRONMENT

The rapid integration of Ukraine into the international educational system has led to the formation of polycultural environment (namely, polynational groups of students) on the basis of domestic higher education institutions. New realities of higher education require qualitatively new changes in methods and approaches to teaching that differ from those, which are traditionally used when working with mononational academic groups. One of the initial stages of development of the latest methods is the selection and organization of educational material for the formation of English professionally oriented competence, since English is the leading language of professional cross-national communication. Attention to the specialty «Medicine» is conditioned by the greatest popularity of the medical profession among foreign students.The purpose of the study is to identify, characterize and classify the principles of selection and organization of educational material, which are important for the effective formation of English professionally oriented competence in speech of future doctors taking into account the specifics of polycultural academic environment.The stated purpose of the study has led to the choice of the following research methods: structural-logical and functional analysis to determine basic principles of selection and organization of educational material, presented in modern research of domestic and foreign scientists, their features and main components, as well as system-structural and comparative analysis, which has allowed to generalize and determine the common and distinctive features of the principles of selection and organization of educational material and to categorize the selected principles with regard to the study matter.The article identifies and describes three categories of principles, including the principles of selection of educational material, the principles of organization of educational material and the overall principles of selection and organization of educational material. The expediency of applying these principles for the formation of English professionally oriented competence in speech of future doctors in a multicultural environment is substantiated.

Research on Teaching Methods to Improve College Students' English Interpretation Ability

With the development of China's foreign economy and trade, the integration model of national economy and world economy is becoming more and more obvious, and there is a gap in the demand for English interpreting talents. As an important carrier of cross-cultural and cross-national communication, English interpretation has been paid more and more attention by colleges and universities, and higher and higher requirements have been put forward for the teaching of English interpretation. Based on this, this paper starts from the current situation of English interpretation teaching in colleges and universities, and analyzes the teaching methods to improve the English interpretation ability of college students.

It's better together! European perspective on benefits and challenges associated with cross-border health communication campaigns.

Recent years have witnessed greater involvement of European Union (EU) organisations in health communication campaigns that address chronic diseases and that are designed for implementation in multiple countries. This development raises challenges inherent in adapting the design of public health communication campaigns to multi-national settings. This article provides a first exploratory investigation of these challenges and how to address them based on data gathered from four expert focus groups, each concentrated on a common risk factor for chronic disease: smoking, alcohol consumption, unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle. Despite the exploratory nature of the data, it was possible to identify several common key challenges: variation in behaviours, social and cultural norms, and issues related to language and communication channels, the divide between EU stakeholders and local actors, and differences in national legislation and available resources. Two risk factor-specific challenges were also identified: effective messaging for complex issues (unhealthy diet) and the involvement of industry representatives (smoking, sedentary lifestyle). We propose conceiving of cross-national communication campaigns as providing a common blueprint and structure that can inform and support the development of differentiated yet harmonised local campaigns.

Advancing the country image construct from a public relations perspective

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a new model for the measurement of the constitution and effects of the country image as a central target construct in international public relations.Design/methodology/approach– The authors combine concepts from reputation management (Eisenegger and Imhof, 2008; Ingenhoff and Sommer, 2007), national identity theory (Smith, 1987), and attitude theory (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) to derive a four-dimensional model, conceptualizing country images as stakeholder attitudes toward a nation and its state, comprising specific beliefs and general feelings in a functional, normative, aesthetic, and emotional dimension. Furthermore, the authors develop a path model to analyze the country image’s effect on stakeholder behavior. This model is operationalized and tested in a survey regarding the country image of the USA and its effects on travel behavior.Findings– Results show how functional, normative and aesthetic image dimensions vary in affecting the formation of the affective image component. It is also demonstrated how the affective image di-mension acts as a mediator in the image’s effect on stakeholder behavior.Practical implications– For international public relations and public diplomacy practice the developed model supplies a new approach for country image analyses which will serve and improve the development and evaluation of cross-national communication strategies.Originality/value– The paper introduces a new theory-grounded approach to clarify the dimensionality of the country image construct. It is the first to operationalize cognitive and affective dimensions of the country image by combining formative and reflective indicators in a mixed specified construct.

A Blend of Romanism and Germanism: Experimental Science Instruction in Belgian State Secondary Education, 1880–1914

A case study of secondary experimental science instruction in Belgium demonstrates the importance of cross-national communication in the study of science education. Belgian secondary science education in the years 1880–1914 had a clear internationalist dimension. French and German influences turn out to have been essential, stimulated by the fact that Belgium, as a result of its geographical position, considered itself as the centre of scientific relations between France and Germany, and as actually strengthened by its linguistic and cultural dualism in this regard. This pursuit of internationalist nationalism also affected the configuration of chemistry and physics as experimental courses at Belgian Royal State Schools, although the years preceding WWI are usually characterized as a period of rising nationalism in science, with countries such as Germany and France as prominent actors. To what extent did France and Germany influence Belgian debates on science education, science teachers’ training, the use of textbooks, and the instalment of school laboratories and teaching collections?

Merge of terminological resources

Summary In our globalized world, the amount of cross-national communication increases rapidly, which also calls for easy access to multi-lingual high quality terminological resources. Sharing of terminology resources is currently becoming common practice, and efficient strategies for integration – or merging – of terminology resources are strongly needed. This paper discusses prerequisites for successful merging with the focus on identification of candidate duplicates of a subject domain found in the resources to be merged, and it describes automatic merging strategies to be applied to such duplicates in electronic terminology resources. Further, some perspectives of manual, supplementary assessment methods supporting the automatic procedures are sketched. Our considerations are primarily based on experience gained in the IATE and EuroTermBank projects, as merging was a much discussed issue in both projects.

Migration, International Telecommunications, and Human Rights1

World polity embeddedness has traditionally been measured by state and civil participation in formal venues, including international organizations, multilateral agreements, and world conferences. In this study, we highlight an alternative form of embeddedness found in cross-national social relations and apply this framework to the human rights sector of the world polity. Specifically, we propose that the international migrant community diffuses human rights values and practices via (1) local performance and (2) cross-national communication. Using data from the World Values Survey, we first show that immigrants are more likely to embrace, and actively participate in, the human rights movement. Next, using network data that report country-to-country bilateral flows, we observe a high degree of correspondence between international migration and telecommunications, confirming previous studies that trace telephone traffic to the flow of people. Finally, analyzing a balanced data set of 333 observations across 111 countries spanning the 1975–2000 period, we use ordered probit regression to assess the local and cross-national effects of migrants on a state’s human rights record. We find that a country’s immigration level and its in-degree centrality in international telecommunications both positively affect its Amnesty International rating, and that these effects are robust to a number of alternative specifications.

Managing effective knowledge acquisition in outsourcing alliances: A suppliers perspective

Knowledge acquisition through international outsourcing alliances often plays a key in increasing a firm’s technology capability. However, knowledge acquisition is not an easy process, as it relates to the firm’s learning ability, the quality of the partnership, cross-national communication, and knowledge ambiguity, etc. Few studies discuss knowledge acquisition from the perspective of suppliers in newly industrialized economies, and often overlook the usefulness of information technology in the learning process. As a result, there are still some research gaps on this topic. Therefore, this study adopts the supplier point of view to explore the differences between suppliers with more or less effective knowledge acquisition. Using a sample of 204 cases of international outsourcing alliances, this study shows that learner characteristics, partnerships, and the use of information technology are the primary factors affecting supplier knowledge acquisition. This study also investigates the different learning patterns of tacit knowledge acquisition and explicit knowledge acquisition. Key words: suppliers, international outsourcing alliance, knowledge acquisition, learner characteristics, partnership, informational technology.

Expect the unexpected: a young academic's conference report: The 23rd AESOP Congress, Liverpool, 2009

The brand 'AESOP' stands for excellence in planning education in Europe. The 23rd AESOP congress in Liverpool certainly stood loyal to this legacy. However, for those young academics joining the AESOP family this year, the event will be remembered not only by its expected traits, but also for its unanticipated qualities. Across its 18 tracks, the 23rd congress gathered participants from far beyond the European planning schools that AESOP represents. Planning academics came from as far as China, Malaysia, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, USA, Tanzania and New Zealand (just to mention a few). Learning about planning issues from these countries along with European ones was the most unexpected and enriching experience. Considering our cultural diversity, even less expected was the immediate sense of belonging and the almost nonchalant ease in cross-national communication created at the event. Apart from individual presentations, some other congress events facilitating interactive knowledge exchange were of particular value. Meetings of the AESOP working groups, the Young Academics Network events and the PhD Workshop held immediately before the congress in the University of Manchester provided places for such gatherings. They made us realise that no matter how different our backgrounds and local contexts may be, no matter what languages we speak, dealing with similar issues and facing similar challenges gives us a sense of unity. Institutional fragmentation; the breakdown of old and the appearance of new planning networks; the increasing role of market forces in the spatial distribution of development; and complexity and change (Albrechts and Balducci, 2009) were just a few examples among the common issues to emerge in the 'Governance and participation' congress track to which my research led me. However, an increasing wealth of international perspectives on a single planning issue made the question 'how can we learn from each other?' even more significant. When discussing the issue of 'change', Prof. Louis Albrechts emphasised that 'a main challenge for planning is to develop the power to make [location and time specific] concepts travel, and to translate them into an array of practice arenas' (Albrechts, 2009). Across the diverse presentations at the 23rd AESOP Congress, I found a new form of cross-cultural research taking over. This was not intentional comparative research, but a form evolving as a result of freedom to travel, a sense of adventure, of prestige and economic migration: Americans researching Russian planning, Germans investigating participation in India, Yugoslavians studying the housing market in England, Malaysians moving to the UK only to study - Malaysia, Mexicans studying development in China for a Dutch university while living in India. And these were just a few researchers representing a rising generation of young planning academics. The future ability to 'make planning concepts travel' (as freely as we do) may lie in understanding the ways these researchers 'journey' from one culture to another in pursuit of an answer for a single research question; how they use several languages to make sense of 'local knowledge' coming from one neighbourhood; and how they bend theoretical concepts while unintentionally mixing cultures. Examining the influence of this new form of cross-cultural research on planning theory and practice may be the theme of some future AESOP event. …

Book Reviews : Simulation-Gaming in the Late 1980's

Edited by David Crookall, who guest-edited the spring 1988 SSCORE issue on computer simulation, this book contains the proceedings of the International Simulation and Gaming Association's 17th Intemational Conference, held at the University of Toulon, France, July 1-4, 1987. Of the 46 papers, 44 are in English. Although the theme is noncomputer simulation, computer simulation is a focus in several articles. Among those discussed are the ICONS (INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS AND NEGOTIATIONS SIMULATIONS) political simulation, L1Sing computer-based crossnational communication networks; ECO-LIFE, a simulation to teach ecological principles; and TUTOR, the army's computerized tutorial system. In general, computer coverage is thin. Nonetheless, the work is a rich reference source on simulation at a general level and is well worth the time of any designer of computer simulations.

Chapter 8: The Methodological Problems of Russian Language Teaching in the Nationality School

The victory of Leninist nationality policy made it possible for our country's nations and nationalities to achieve truly historic successes in their societal, economic, and spiritual [and intellectual] development. These achievements have been vividly illustrated, in particular, both by the precipitous blossoming of their native languages and by the spread of Russian as the language of cross-national communication between the peoples of the USSR.