International, interactive, integrated communication

By Harry Smals on 18 June 2009

Many of my students are writing their thesis now – or they just finished it. Some of them are about international communication. Striking: ‘’international’’ in most cases also means that is about applying interactive media! One research- and advice-project was for an international culture network. A Dutch theatre offers its stage to artists from Africa, Asia and Latin America. This resulted in a successful network maintained mainly by email and Facebook. My student’s task was to expand this network to more stages throughout Europe. She distributed a Google Docs questionnaire. I received drafts of her report by email and I commented them with the ‘’comment’’ function in Word. The international paperless office in practice. Strange that eventually she had to hand in a hardcopy! Her advice was to reduce the focus on Facebook as internet is not as omnipresent in Africa, Asia and Latin America as it is in Europe (hey, this is international communication, media-use varies across cultures!), furthermore she suggests to improve the application of the good old website and to expand the network within Europe by networking during a designated fair. Yes, physically meet people and talk with them, maybe exchange a business-card and a leaflet! This is an example of international, interactive, integrated communication: communication across borders and cultures, using a mix of digital and analogue media plus events – and there is interaction, online and offline.

tagged with: international, interaction