Answer to Question 1
Cultures are larger than publics and may consist of countless different publics. While common
values or interests in a particular situation unite members of a public, a host of demographic,
psychographic, and geodeomographic traits unite members of a culture. Rather than being a cultural
melting pot, the United States is becoming more culturally diverse. Marketing expert Marlene
Rossman says that the United States, rather than a melting pot, is a mosaic.
Answer to Question 2
Encoding and decoding are critical in cross-cultural communication. In successful cross cultural
communication, sources must understand how a message will be decoded before they can encode it.
Even with different encoding necessary for different cultures, all messages from an organization
should still embrace core values. Our gestures, clothing, and expressions can communicate as much
to others as our words. However, different cultures can have different interpretations. Stereotyping is
the assumption that all individuals in a culture will act, think, feel, and believe in the same way.
Cultures consist of individuals, none of whom are exactly alike. Practitioners also need to be
sensitive to the fact that persons from other cultures may also be trying to demonstrate cultural
sensitivity in their interactions with the practitioners.
Public setting
Positron emission tomography (PET) image showing the difference in the metabolic activity of the bra
Your Culture and Your Point of View
Triumphal Entry, page from a manuscript of Firdawsi's Shahnamah, Persian, Safavid culture.
Basin, Majiayao culture, Majiayao phase, Gansu province, China.
Art and culture