ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the two questions: What kind of communication prompts learning in a wisdom community, and what can we do to encourage it? It establishes a conceptual foundation by examining the role of culture in communication. Culture and communication go hand in hand, but exactly how they inform each other can be difficult to dissect. One of the most frequently used conceptual frameworks for understanding culture and communication in online environments is the cultural dimensions framework developed by Geert Hofstede. Hofstede identified types of cultural differences at the national level. Edward T. Hall identified another bipolar dimension worth our consideration: the significance of context, an important aspect of sociocultural theory, in how we communicate. He noted that, in high-contextcultures, people pay attention to relationships between communicators and nonverbal cues such as silence and body language. The role of silence is another important concept to consider from different cultural perspectives.
