Weekly News Clippings

Due Wednesdays throughout the semester by 5pm

You will be required to check on-line newspapers (links to relevant news sites may be found on this blog) or related publications from your anti-buddy's society on a regular basis. Your task is to cut and paste about three paragraphs of relevant news or commentary per week (along with a link to the story) and share them with your group members. You will then write a sentence or two with your reaction to the article you have selected.

Portrait of My Anti-Buddy

Due Wednesday, February 10th by 5pm

Your anti-buddy is a fictional, but realistic character living in a part of the world that has strained relations with the United States. Your task is to imagine—as realistically as possible, and on the basis of solid information—how this person might think, act, and communicate under various circumstances and in interaction with you, the “outsider” or “American”.

In other words, your job is to (a) research the culture of a place and the conditions of life of the people in this place; (b) to fashion from these factual materials a fictional person with whom you would share some common ground and work together (If you can’t think of anything else, then your anti-buddy is a student from a lower middle-class background. But, be creative - you could work on a study project together, in a volunteer organization, in some inter-governmental training program, the military, or in a particular sport or club —wherever you might feel comfortable working/interacting)—but from whom you are separated by a cultural divide and by your anti-buddy’s anti-Americanism. For whatever reasons (you will find out why in a later assignment) he/she is one of the many people in his/her country who—at least until he/she met you—has “an unfavorable opinion” of America and Americans. That being said, please note that he/she is not violent, and you have to form a workable relationship with him/her.

Within this fictional but realistic framework of an intercultural relationship you can then use your anti-buddy as a thinking aide by consulting in your mind with him/her: What would he say? How would she act? What does he/she think about this matter?

For this first part of the project, you will:

• Research on-line sources about the country
• Write a minimum of 200 words in a blog post briefly telling your classmates about the country, current conflicts in which it figures, why it matters to America, as well as summarize info about public opinion in the country
• In a minimum of 150 words, name and describe your anti-buddy and his/her life. Give him/her about 7 characteristics—personal, social, cultural, religious and political. Explain each of these characteristics in a sentence or two (the characteristics may range from being the member of a radical religious organization to being a vegetarian or even that s/he is good-looking). Feel free to be creative and combine fantasy with realism, as if you were to write a “docudrama” film-script
• Cite your sources in MLA or APA format
• Name the newspapers your anti-buddy reads on-line and summarize (in a sentence or two) a story that he/she read this morning (this will be your first weekly press clipping).

Three Forces in My Anti-Buddy's Life

Due Wednesday, March 3rd by 5pm

The purpose of this assignment is to prepare for intercultural interaction and empathy.

Going back to the 2002 & 2008 Pew reports (in particular, the sections about people’s perceptions of their own societies), and drawing on additional research (reading of newspaper, additional on-line or library research), you should identify three main forces that shape your anti-buddy’s daily life, ways of thinking, and struggles. Find three terms that describe these “forces”, and then state what specifically you mean by them and why you chose these rather than other forces. Thus, while you can say “religion” or “poverty”, you would then have to point out what role religion plays at this time in the lives of those who share the life of your anti-buddy, or give specific information about poverty, its magnitude, its causes, and the way it manifests itself in this place. Blog posts should be a minimum of 250 words. Be sure to include sources in MLA or APA format at the bottom of your post.

My Anti-Buddy's Anti-Americanism

Due Wednesday, March 31st by 5pm

The purpose of this assignment is to acquaint your self with the mind-set of a group of people who have a negative attitude toward one’s own culture, as well as to see one’s own culture through the eyes of others.

Your task is to research the specific sources and causes of Anti Americanism within your anti-buddy’s society (even if such views are only held by a minority of the population). Do not try to cop-out and explain your anti-buddy’s Anti-Americanism as just being part of the resentments felt all over the world right now. Rather, you must find a specific explanation that holds for this particular society. The causes may be historical, religious, economic, or cultural. Thus, you need to acquaint yourself even more with your anti-buddy’s world by consulting sources about the history of this society and its relations with the United States. You should begin with a sentence or two summarizing the facts you have found (from research conducted). Your blog post should be a minimum of 250 words describing the different factors contributing to Anti-Americanism in order of decreasing importance. Please regard this assignment as a continuation of the Three Forces assignment.

My Anti-Buddy's Communication Manners

Due Wednesday, April 14th by 5pm

• Identify the general cultural area to which your anti-buddy’s society belongs. (Often, this area can be categorized in more than one way. For example: Iran is part of the Middle East, Arab civilization, Islam, and also comprises local culture and ethnic-cultural minorities. Choose the category for which you can find the best information.)
• Find reliable, high-quality information/literature about culture, customs, and communication in this general cultural area. Sources can include novels, anthropological literature, travel guides, and literature on intercultural communication. Please include citations in MLA or APA format at the bottom of your blog post. Failure to include these will result in a grade reduction.
• Focus on one particular area of communication: ‘areas’ can include politeness, communication and status, gender and communication, directness/indirectness, high context vs low context or any other topic that seems important to know about your anti-buddy’s society.
• Write a 250-word minimum blog post that would be helpful for an American traveler wishing to visit this particular country. In other words, think about writing it as a guide. For example: “This is some of what you need to know about local communication practices when traveling to this country as an American.” Be precise about some of the differences in culture and communication practices that an American traveler might experience when planning to visit this country.

Welcome!

Welcome to COM 263: Intercultural Communication! I look forward to our discussions this semester.