Individual Commentary. Communications & Media Essay

INDIVIDUAL COMMENTARY
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Individual Commentary
Intercultural relationship development is an engaging exercise that requires a high level of research and exploration. Some scholars have proposed the need to establish a link between communication and psychology as a pathway towards developing this relationship. The relationship between communication and psychology draws from the social psychology concept developed in the 19th century as a part of experimental psychology that expounds on the limits of human perception and motor behavior (Hornsey, Gallois, & Duck 2008). The assessment two grant focused on how to utilize communication using a new app called INFLUENCE to boost the interaction between the Chinese and Indigenous communities. The proposal outlines the discrimination that the Chinese and the Indigenous communities face under the dominant whites in the country. However, some glaring weaknesses should be rectified. While the INFLUENCE app is designed to ensure inclusivity, the strategy to bring people onboard the app is not clear. The proposal lacks a clear plan on how the older adults aged 65 and older will be incorporated and the possible challenges.
As specified in the proposal, Chinese-Australians and the Indigenous population face different challenges that hamper their acculturation process. The proposal highlights the lack of a sense of belonging as a challenge to the Chinese-Australians. The efforts by the government to please immigrants of the Asian origin have been perceived as anchored on financial support the country acquires from China. Similarly, the Indigenous groups have often felt isolated in their country, especially following the 1992 law and the government’s decision to limit the Aboriginal material reality. While the proposal captures these assertions, the explanation provided is not comprehensive enough. The purpose of this proposal was to increase the collaboration and subsequent influence of the Chinese groups and the Aboriginals. This identification of the stressors of the individual groups is in line with Berry’s model of acculturation, along with other intercultural communication models, which hold that adaptations happen because of contact between cultures, and the change process is stressful. People’s disorientation, misunderstanding, anxiety, and stress result from culture clash because of variations in their values, beliefs, and customs (Liu & Gallois 2014). The Chinese have unique values and beliefs, and when they move to Australia, they experience stress due to acculturation. A proper assessment of the stressors should have delved more into the specific beliefs that lead to acculturation stress. The same weakness is evident in the identification of stressors affecting the Aboriginal groups. Our proposal highlights a lack of belongingness as a stressor without further elaboration on the specific values, customs, or behaviors that differ from the Aboriginal groups, which leads to stress. Identification of such specific stressors would have made it easier to determine the particular areas that efforts should focus on improving. Organizing cultural events without a clear picture of what to address in such activities may not yield the expected results. Therefore, our proposal should have narrowed down and stated the specific trait that makes it difficult for them to adapt to the new cultures.
The proposal does an excellent job of trying to include groups from both sides. We have tried to incorporate the concerns of both the Aboriginal and the Chinese-Australians. The decision to use media and technology in presenting the multicultural information exchange platform will allow people to access and share information with others irrespective of their location. The problem with the Chinese-Australians is that they face an identity crisis as they are usually unable to relate to the Australian culture. On the other hand, the Aboriginals also face a similar challenge of an identity crisis as they strive to fight off the invasion by different cultures that threaten to extinguish their tradition. Thus, the decision to identify the individual groups according to their places of residence and classifying them in the same cultural background is plausible as it makes it easier to study and understand the behavioral and identity characteristics of the target groups. However, the study is less inclusive as it fails to cover the needs of the older population and partly explores the challenges Aboriginal groups face. As noted in the study, 83% of the first-generation immigrants tend to classify themselves into only one cultural group (Liu 2015). The first-generation immigrants are the parents of second-generation immigrants, and from the statistics prese...