Final Video for Cultural Reporter Project

Summary Blog-Cultural Reporter Project

Project Summary Blog-Cultural Reporter Project

         Welcome back once again to my cultural reporter project.  In my report I will tie my information about the culture of Jamaica in my introduction blog to my own culture in America in this summary blog.  I researched and found that there were some differences in the two cultures but there were many more similarities that they had in common.  I became very intrigued and interested in the culture of Jamaica ever since I traveled there on vacation when I was seventeen.  They have a familial identity that is unlike any other culture in the world and is unique to its own.

         As I stated in my second blog I want to describe the concept of familial identity and tie it to the culture of Jamaica.  Familial identity is defined as evidence in many collectivistic cultures that stress the importance of emotional connectedness and interdependence with others (Martin & Nakayama, 2009).  A great deal of my research came from one of my good friends who grew up on the island of Jamaica until he was twelve years old before he moved to the United States.  Familial identity was a great concept to choose because they have a type of culture that is centered mainly around the closeness of family members and the time that the family spends together.  As I stated in my second blog music is a big factor in family closeness because concerts, events, and music festivals are activities that are taken in at various family outings.  Activities like dinners where all members of the family all sit down and have a family meal together are huge in the culture as well.  Another component of familial identity that I pointed out was emotional stability and acceptance.  Jamaican family is of the upmost importance and nothing is considered to come before it but the sprit of God (Jamaica, 2012).

         Communication competence when dealing at the intercultural level is sometimes tricky when trying to communicate across cultures.  Intercultural competence is based on four components: motivation, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors (Martin & Nakayama, 2009).  Our class text also points out that the context of the intercultural communication and the way it is interpreted play major factors as well.

         Intercultural differences have a great impact on future communication issues because people are more educated on these differences and it helps them communicate better in the future.  The advice that I would personally give would be to base intercultural communication components on education.  If people are educated on these communication issues they will potentially act in a different way to accommodate the cross culture communication barrier.  Practice with communicating between cultures is another thing that would help our intercultural skills.  Actually communicating between one another and studying the opposite culture will contribute major advantages in the future as well.  I hope I was able to do some good with this project and highlight some important factors involved with intercultural communication skills.

Reference Page

Martin, J.N. & Nakayama, T.K. (2009).  Intercultural Communication in Contexts:        

 (Fifth Edition). McGraw Hill Higher Education.

Jamaica. (2012).  Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online: Retrieved at    http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/299716/Jamaica/214963/Daily-life 

• This video depicts an average family on the island of Jamaica taking part in a family reunion on a countryside in the hills complete with traditional food and music.

• Some various pictures that depict the culture on the island of Jamaica.  Music, Carribean-style food, and traditional-style of clothing have all been important parts of the culture for hundreds of years.