COMMUNICATION AND

CULTURE
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?
 At its most basic, communication is the exchange of
information and meaning. 

 With oneself (intrapersonal communication)

 with each other (interpersonal communication)

 with different cultural groups or subgroups (intercultural

communication)
 or to large audiences (mass communication)
WE COMMUNICATE TO:
 Understand
 Be understood

 Express

 Share

 Be informed
CULTURE
 (Latin: cultura)
 For communication studies, we might start by defining
culture as a set of learned behaviours shared by a group
of people through interaction.
CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE
TYPES OF CULTURE
 Material Culture - the physical objects, resources, and
spaces that people use
to define their culture. These include homes, schools,
churches, mosques,
offices, temples, factories and plants, clothes, utensils,
roads, ornaments,
T.V, radio, machines, tools, goods and products, stores
and many more. 
TYPES OF CULTURE
 Nonmaterial Culture - which cannot be touched, felt,
tasted or held. Non material culture belongs to the
nonphysical ideas that people have about their culture,
including beliefs, values, rules, norms, morals,
languages, social roles, ethics, music, literature, customs,
traditions, organizations and institutions.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
 Social Organization - shows how the
society treats the relationships between different
members of that culture.

 Customs - are traditions, values, and social standards of

a
society and establish practices. These help a society
indicate the rules of
behaviour which enforce ideas of right and wrong.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
 Rituals - are processes or sets of actions that are repeated
in specific conditions and with specific meaning.

 Religion - describes the society’s morals and beliefs

about humanity’s spirituality and
reason for existing.

 Language - is a symbolic system through which people

communicate and through which culture is written, acted
and transmitted.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
 Norms -  standards and expectations in
cultures for behaving.

 Formal norms - also called mores and laws considered

most important in any society.

 Informal norms - also called folkways and customs,

considered less important.
WHAT IS SOCIETY?
 At their simplest can be defined as groups of interacting
individuals.

 It is through this interaction that individuals develop and

communicate the markers of culture, and so in human
societies, it is very difficult to separate out ‘culture’ and
‘society.’
THE IDEA OF CULTURE AS SOMETHING
THAT IS SHARED MEANS THAT IT IS
VITAL TO UNDERSTAND CULTURE AND
COMMUNICATION IN RELATION TO ONE
ANOTHER.  THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN CULTURE AND
COMMUNICATION, IN ALL ITS FORMS, IS
TIGHTLY INTERWOVEN AND
INTERLINKED.
WE CAN SEE THAT COMMUNICATION
ENABLES THE SPREAD AND
REITERATION OF CULTURE.  BOTH
COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA
PROPAGATE THE VALUES AND
SCHEMAS OF A CULTURE THROUGH
THE REPEATED INTERACTION AND
EXCHANGE ENABLED BY THE
COMMUNICATIONS PROCESS.
REPRESENTATION
 how is the meaning conveyed to the audience, user, or
co-communicator?  What signs, modes and discourses
help convey the meaning – not only the ‘factual’ or
informational meaning, but also the social meaning.  For
example, what does the colour pink represent in your
cultural context?
IDENTITY
 refers to how meaning is internalized by the receiver or
audience.  Our identity is shaped by our culture, which
creates a range of viable and non-viable identity options
that are presented, refined and renegotiated through our
communication and exchange of cultural objects.  
PRODUCTION
 here refers to the production of meaning.  Meaning can
be produced and reproduced in a number of ways.  An
individual may produce meaning about themselves in the
way they dress or wear their hat.  Apple™ produces
meaning about itself in the way they design and build the
iPhone™. 
CONSUMPTION
 The flip side of production is consumption.  
Consumption of texts, whether they be an outfit, a
conversation, or a pop-song, reflects cultural values and
expectations – conforming to values and expectations
leads to unproblematic consumption – it’s what is
expected, it fits our internalized schema.
REGULATION
 refers to the forces which constrain the production,
distribution, and consumption of texts.  These forces
may be explicit, such as the television broadcasters code
of conduct, or they may be implicit, such as the blogger
litmus test of ‘would you say this in front of your
mother?’
IT IS IMPORTANT, WHEN CONSIDERING
COMMUNICATION WITHIN A CULTURAL
CONTEXT, TO REMEMBER THAT THERE
ARE MULTIPLE FACTORS INFLUENCING
THE PRODUCTION OF TEXT AND
MEANING.  THESE FACTORS MAY
SUPPORT THE TEXT, REINFORCE A
CULTURAL POSITION, OR
ALTERNATIVELY, THEY MAY CHALLENGE
OR CONFRONT A CULTURAL SCHEMA.
REFERENCES
 https://medium.com/@beautehealthy/what-is-culture-typ
es-of-culture-elements-of-culture-characteristics-of-cultu
re-7b4d65caddc7

 https://opentextbc.ca/mediastudies101/chapter/communi
cation-culture/

 https://opentextbc.ca/mediastudies101/back-matter/gloss
ary/#schema