ABSTRACT
The August 23, 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports the results of a small study comparing how European-American and native Chinese students interpret a photograph. Not surprisingly, the students differed in their take on the photograph, but the underlying cultural differences that led to those distinctions are deep, profound, and represent the tremendous challenges facing today’s public relations practitioners. The North American students looked at
Communication is a complex concept but a function critical to virtually all human interaction. Continued improvement of the human condition depends upon our effective conduct of communication interactions, but despite more than 10,000 years of recorded history we’re still perplexed by our frequent inability to encode, transmit and decode even the simplest messages, either interpersonally or via the burgeoning spectra of mass-media channels. Communication between and among individuals, organizations
and states has grown rapidly in volume and frequency but not necessarily in effectiveness. Current and future public relations professionals and scholars are uniquely positioned and prepared to lubricate and bolster communication effectiveness at micro and macro levels. This chapter aims to describe the common dimensions of the discipline upon which we can build a logical framework for understanding and pursuing global practice.
