Cross-Cultural Blog

Thank you such for sharing such a nice article. I would like to give some Suggestions for presenting across cultures like Explain esoteric cultural aspects, Understand the audience & how to build ethos, and Present same idea clearly & in a variety of ways.

I have to say that there might not be as much inter-cultural communications involved in the Video Conferencing event that just took place than there would be expected. In the session I was in, on our side two of us were from America and one was from Singapore. On the other side there was one person from China, one from London, and two from other places. Communications for an international world have become so homogenous that I could not tell any major differences in the conversation.

Although this was a fun sort of experiment, the interface we used ran into quite a few problems making it difficult to interact. For the spotty few sections where everything was functioning correctly we had some pretty good discussions on the rhetoric of some political cartoons the Australian groups had as well as the images we brought. It was pretty interesting to learn that people all the way across the world are learning the same things we are.

I have tu agree with Matt. The interface really ruined part of the interaction but it was very interesting to hear similar phrases and terms used in classrooms across the world. What was also very interesting was to see the different cultures portrayed in the cartoons and the symbols that were seen by the Australians that I may never have picked up

I liked the overall conference. Lots of good conversation was made, and it was good to get outside perspectives. The interface went pretty well for us, save a few hiccups. It was also nice to see how other people were looking at rhetoric in media.

I know it's a cross-cultural project, but I'd be interested in doing a conference with people from different parts of the US as well as international regions. I'm sure even within the US there could be good comments and debate over our PWR projects. And gaming topics might be more familiar to those in Japan, US, and Europe (the major markets for video games) than other places.

Once again I agree with pretty much everything else that's been said. The interface was really patchy, and the technology created quite an obstacle. For the rare times when we could actually have uninterrupted conversation, it was really interesting to see that, as Matt said, we are both learning essentially the same thing, on opposite sides of the world.

The conference was fun and interesting, but the technical glitches made it rather difficult to communicate well with the students from U Sydney. It was also interesting to note that a lot of the students we met were international students, so the views we got were quite diverse.

To us, the idea of a direct cultural exchange was novel, albeit beset by numerous issues. Unfortunately for us, the Australians seemed to have little to no access to the whiteboard feature of the program.
however, there were also many good points to our conversation. Justin introduced us to an issue in China which proved to be both interesting and relevant to our own research.
The presentation on the Japanese editorial cartoon raised an interesting point of contention between American and Japanese culture, questioning the value of harmonious work as part of a group, or alone.
The 19th century editorial cartoon on the struggle for economic monopolies in China provided an interesting historical dimension to our analysis and proved that rhetorical devices have been used effectively throughout human history.

Finally, we enjoyed the opportunity to discuss our research projects and answer your questions on them. It helped us think about refining and focusing our topics.

Even though the audio and video of the conference were a little choppy, the essence of the conference was maintained. It was difficult to see some of the political cartoons, but they were generally explained enough to build a mental picture. We enjoyed communicating with students across the world, and even though we are so geographically separated we took similar steps to analyze our graphical text.

Overall the conference was enjoyable. It was interesting to see how similar the chosen articles were -- both a student from Sydney and one member of our own group selected a political cartoon on healthcare. This should no surprise, though, because everybody was selecting their texts from the Internet, an already cross-cultural medium.

As mentioned in comments above, we are learning very similar things across the globe. I chuckled when one of the students from Sydney mentioned "pathos, ethos, and logos."

-Cultural context / background for the image
-Not too much jargon/complicated words
-Outline for the listener what you're about to say, where you're going
with the presentation
-Be clear
-Talk about the purpose of the image and your thesis

What I found most interesting about the video conference was hearing the Australian students take on the ads that we had found. They displayed a thorough knowledge of U.S. and world issues, and examined a current political cartoon of Obama exactly as we had. Our cartoons led us into an interesting discussion about the healthcare situations in both the U.S. and Australia. From our Australian friends' cartoon we learned about a cultural issue in Australia where the younger generation is spending too much time glued to the computer. I was impressed by the other students' analyses of our ads. It was fascinating to see how the issues in Australia differ from the issues here.
I thought that the most effective strategy in talking to the other group was asking questions about how they interpreted an visual, how they received the argument within the context of their own culture, and how they viewed it in light of ours. By learning about their perceptions, I think we learned a lot about our own.

I loved meeting people through videoconferencing! We talked about one political cartoon about a rugby drug scandal in Australia that definitely reminded me of the many steroid scandals we have had here in the U.S.! It was interesting also noting that visual rhetoric can extend across languages; one political cartoon we look at was in Chinese, but the meaning was still more or less clear. Cool stuff!

The videoconference was very interesting, in that, it allow me to see how students from all around the world are doing the same activities, following similar instructions and are going through the similar steps of rhetoric. It was very informative to have point of views on our cartoons and images from students of different culture, background and lifestyles. The students in Australia perceived the cartoon much differently than the way the students here in the United States did. This exemplified the kind audience we would be trying to persuade in our written rhetorical analysis. Also, the effect of the international community offered by both universities on its students was very evident as there were many similar reactions and ideas on certain topics. Overall, it was very productive and inspiring to meet individuals from all over the world.

Today's Cross Cultural Rhetoric conference with students at the University of Sydney revealed some interesting parallels and contrasts between American and Australian cultures. We discovered that many terms that we take for granted--being "freshmen" in college, for example, or the meaning of a Native American powwow--were completely unfamiliar to them. However, we found many similarities that lay under the superficial differences. The girls we talked to discussed some of the same subjects that our class is interested in: controversial steroid scandals among professional athletes and international relations.

Today's weblink discussion was very interesting. We had the chance to present our work to students from another country, and communicate our ideas about the rhetoric texts we chose. We were exposed to the opinions of fellow students from an alternative culture, which opened our eyes to the differences that exist between us. The biggest insight was learning of the difference between Red Bull advertising campaigns in our countries.

Participated in the October 15th discussions with Australia. Personally I'm used to interacting within a global society (have considerable experience within online gaming in non-trivial roles and manners) so as an overall experience, it felt comfortable and familiar to me. Specifically, hearing an Australian's view on his country's view of US politics was very interesting: if the people in the US like X, then we like X; if the people in the US don't like Y, then we don't like Y. Interesting measurement. This was both memorable and surprising, since I'd expected Australia to be evaluating the US from an Australia-centric measuring stick.

Overall, this was a good experience, however there are some basic logistical problems that need solutions. There was somewhat of a lack of a clear command/administrative structure on both ends of the intercultural conference. We had difficulty organizing certain groups to make sure that the right people met with the right people at the right times. I would strongly advocate the use of a simple "universal chatroom" using a third-party (non-marratech) program as a foolproof staging ground. In my experience social assembling and coordinating large groups online (20-80-150+ persons) for eight hours requiring extremely high precision and speed in communication, a "universal" or "general" chatroom upon which all further advanced communications and organization is based off is absolutely critical. From this "universal" chatroom individual groups with problems can call out, and administrators on both ends can coordinate this without having to track each other down along dozens of different channels of communication. Happy to discuss further (mattchal@stanford.edu).

I really enjoyed doing the video conference, we learned some cool stuff about two different cartoons. The first was about the drug scandal in rugby, which was really relatable because of all the drug scandals in American baseball. We also learned about a chinese political cartoon that had chinese writing, but was mostly understood just through the characters in the cartoon. We finished our conference by talking a little bit about college life and our different living situations, which was super cool to hear about! It was a great first experience with video conferencing!!

The video conference was magnificent! Aside from a few small technical difficulties at the beginning, it went very smoothly. I really enjoyed realizing the similarities between both of our cultures. The students in Australia were able to give me insight into issues I had never even considered such as "The Lost Generation," various Australian political hypocrisies, and the global view of American institutions like Disney. Overall, I was impressed with how much we all had in common. We even shared a love for Facebook, one which we celebrated afterward by posting on each others' walls. It is experiences like this which truly make me appreciate the power of technology in respect to cross-cultural collaboration.

I really enjoyed the video conference. Having the opportunity to directly interact with students from Australia is definitely unique and was very beneficial to me. It was very noteworthy how similar our ways of approaching the analysis of various visuals were, but how our ideas and conclusions were different and profoundly shaped by our personal culture and background. For example, one student presented a political cartoon that commented on the treatment of the Muslim community in elections in Australia. As a group, we realized that the political cartoon and its message made much more sense to those from Australia, rather than to me (I'm from CA), simply because of the references to Australian historical and political background that people may not know if they did not grow up and live there.

I agree with Lea's observations that the exercise was very enjoyable and enlightening. The Australian students--one local student and two international students--contributed interesting, surprising points of views to our discussion of our images. We luckily did not encounter any technical difficulties.

One of the biggest findings of this experience for us was almost regrettable. The Australian students presented on topics ranging from Japanese - Chinese relations in the 1950's to US policies on gay rights. The finding was that whereas the Australian students seemed very internationally oriented, we pretty much didn't know jack about Australia. In fact, we didn't even know the origin of our own national symbol - Uncle Sam - and they were happy to explain it to us.

Granted, their presentations reflected their preparation and research, so it is a little unclear how familiar they were already with international relations. Nevertheless, when we brought up a political cartoon on health care, the Australian students already knew about the national healthcare reform debates, which shows that they are aware of international current events.

Regrettably, due to technological difficulties, we had some trouble communicating, but we were still able to get the gist of their projects.

One of the most interesting parts of our conference was the fact that we had 4 different nationalities involved - Thai, Singaporean, Vietnamese, and American, which make talking about political cartoon even more interesting because of our different backgrounds.

Asides from sharing on political cartoon, we wandered off topic to talking about differences in our university systems as well. That was the interesting part actually, and better served the idea of cross-cultural rhetoric. Focusing on cultural differences rather than rhetorical analysis of political cartoon would have made it a bit easier to converse, particularly when neither side's class focus on politics. Plus, the topic of cultural differences would be more meaningful and practical to both sides.

Overall, though, we think it was generally good experience. Also, our technologies didn't break.

Since everyone used the adjective "interesting" to describe the exercise I refuse to conform and will call it boring. Just Playing, it was pretty cool, I definitely went into it trying to make the best of it, but it wasn't really a mutual sentiment. Two of the three students I talked to treated this exercise as more of an assignment rather than a chance to interact and it definitely took away from the experience. Nonetheless I would definitely be willing to do this again.

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the cross-cultural exchanges my classmates had with students in Australia last week. It was unfortunate that there were so many purported technical difficulties, but I think more unfortunate was the fact that Australian students were being graded on the session. That particular circumstance seemed to reduce the overall benefits on both sides: my American classmates were dissapointed about the rigidity of the session, and I would imagine that the Australian students felt equally hampered in their ability to be frank and have honest exchanges. Overall, though, it sounds like a very enlightening experience and one I was sorry to have to miss.

The cross-cultural rhetoric project has a great deal of potential. The set-up was high-tech and relatively well-organized (though the connection to Australia was difficult and we were interrupted a bit more than I would have liked). It was a great use of technology to communicate in a new way and had clearly been developed with a lot of thought. The main problem with my experience was the lack of engagement on the other side. Our Australian partners seem to have treated this as an assignment they had to slog through rather than an experience to engage with a new culture and learn more about the world. This could be fixed if both sides were in agreement about what the purpose of the project was and the students of both schools were more engaged in the experience.

The cross-cultural exchange I had with students from the University of Sydney was worth experiencing, but I did not personally enjoy it. The exchange we had was mainly one way--my partner and I had to keep the conversation going, and if we were to ever stop talking, the conversation would come to a screeching halt. I would have liked it much more if we could have just talked with the other students, rather than try to follow specific scripts and talk about things that neither end cared about. I would gladly do this again, mainly because I saw the potential for how fun this could be, even if I did not experience that in my first go.

I will agree with those above that the conferencing system was not very effective. First of all, there were issues with the microphones and cameras. Secondly, I think one of the most interesting parts of the interaction was learning how important physical communication was-it was very interesting how little I felt that I knew the people whom I could have known much better if I met them in person. I would definitely like to meet the people in person instead of just on webcam.

Also, I feel that there is a problem presenting things from other cultures. I think it made it harder to understand the Australian culture through the presentations on cartoons from other cultures because we were thinking about how they interpreted other cultures. It is tough without a context to go on.

The enjoyable part was when we could talk freely about university but I actually felt badly speaking at some points because I felt that I would be just pushing the stereotypes (do kangaroos live all over the place? haha).

Well, overall if I had to give my experience a grade, I would probably go with a C- or D. Allow me to explain my unique circumstances in the CCR room: I was alone, in a large room and connected with only 1 other student. This by itself, created many awkward moments because at some times neither of us had anything to say. Second, the large screen in my room didn't work and so I had about a 1x1 inch screen to see the other person on. At first, the system malfunctioned and I couldn't hear her and the video was choppy, but that was eventually resolved. So, on to the actual conversation. The austrailian student on the other end was 100% korean and spoke english as a second language. This created a small language barrier between us. The talk was very awkward because she had very little to offer as far as austrailian culture (her image was in chinese) and she only spent about 25 seconds talking about it.

When I presented, I tried to eat up as much time as I could, but she didn't really any idea of what was going on with American Hip Hop, so my argument fell upon deaf ears. I felt like the student on the other end didn't really want to be there, wasn't eager to learn about America. I think it's worth another try though, because I really like the idea/motive behind this project. So all hope is not lost (lol).

Between us speaking, in my opinion, it is obvious. I would not wish to develop this theme. Internet Risperdal