Role of Culture in Communication

DAVID HESSELGRAVE — ROLE OF CULTURE IN COMMUNICATION here was a time in the history of man . . . when the barriers between the earth’s peoples seemed to be mainly physical. The problem was one of transporting men, messages, and material goods across treacherous seas, towering mountains, and trackless deserts. Missionaries knew all too well how formidable those challenges were. Today, thanks to jumbo jets, giant ocean vessels, and towering antennae, those earlier problems have been largely resolved. We can deliver a man, or a Bible, or a sewing machine anywhere on the face of the earth within a matter of hours, and we can transmit a sound or a picture within seconds. This does not end the matter however. To quote Robert Park: One can transport words across cultural boundaries (like bricks) but interpretation will depend on the context which their different interpreters bring to them. And that context will depend more on past experience and present temper of the people to whom the words are addressed than on the good will of the persons who report them.1 Park goes on to assert that the traits of material culture are more easily diffused than those of nonmaterial culture. He illustrates his point by citing the example of the African chief whose immediate response upon seeing a plow in operation was, “It’s worth as much as ten wives!” One wonders how much prayer and how many hours of study and patient instruction would have been necessary to convince that chief that Christ is infinitely more valuable than plows, or wives, or fetishes and false gods. Yes, the barriers are, after all, very real and challenging. But they are no longer essentially physical—if, indeed, they ever were.

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The Role of Culture in Communication by David J. Hesselgrave ing frequency, we may forget that it is the cultural barriers which are the most formidable. The gap between our technological advances and our communication skills is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of