5 Steps to Harness the Power of Intercultural Communications during COVID-19
When we see a crisis like COVID-19 and its impact on cultures worldwide, most global communicators want to bring awareness and drive solutions. So, what’s the problem? If you are new to public relations or intercultural communications, you may be asking yourself — where do I start or what steps should I take? To answer these questions, I turn to my recent work on COVID-19’s impact on Brazil. Below are five practical steps to harness the power of intercultural communications during COVID-19.
Step 1: Self Reflect
First, explore what makes you the person you are today. You must first understand your own social and cultural identities before you can expect to understand others’ identities. Let’s consider Judith Martin and Thomas Nakayama’s Intercultural Communications in Context. Make a list of your nine social and cultural identities, as defined in Table 1.
Are there identities of which you are uncertain? Interview family members about your heritage, going back as far as you can. If you’re not sure where to start, ancestry.com offers useful tools to point you in the right direction. If you’re like me and asking about your family history is a sensitive topic, think outside your immediate circle — a more distant relative could serve as a quality source. If you’re lucky, you will reconnect with a cousin or an aunt who has already validated your family tree and is thrilled to share what he/she learned.
Don’t forget your ascribed identities — those that others attribute to you (Martin & Nakayama, 2018, p. 171). Ask a friend or loved one to observe your behavior and report back on your verbal and non-verbal communication (i.e., gestures, facial expressions, proxemics, greetings, etc.). Understanding these self-identities will help you empathize with people who differ from you. For instance, the completion of this first step enhanced my compassion for Brazilians as they battled the second-worst COVID-19 outbreak outside the United States.
Step 2: Research, research, research!
Research is paramount to laying the foundation for your desired outcomes — awareness and social change. Without it, your audience may find it difficult to trust you or consider you a thought leader. To that point, be sure to use quality sources such as reputable news outlets, reliable data analytics and peer-reviewed journals. Consider the different research approaches covered by Martin and Nakayama and decide which will be most effective for gaining the necessary information. Table 2 compares the three primary approaches to intercultural communications: social science, interpretive and critical. A fourth approach — the dialectical approach — integrates the former three approaches and acknowledges that they are interconnected and sometimes contradictory (Martin & Nakayama, 2018, p. 69).
Additionally, a country’s five environmental variables — political ideology, economic system, degree of activism, culture, and media system (Sriramesh & Vercic, 2009, p. 4) — can help shape your view of the unique challenges its citizens face. For example, I learned from Reporters without Borders that Brazil’s media ownership is highly concentrated, meaning only a few affluent Brazilian families control the dissemination of information — a pivotal factor in the COVID-19 era.
Step 3: Define Your Audience
“Think before you ink,” advises Ophir Lehavy, a strategic communicator, writer, and educator at the University of Florida (Lehavy, 2019). Who is your audience? Perhaps more accurately, who are the influencers that you need to reach to help bring about your desired outcomes? As much as possible, determine your audience’s demographics (i.e., age, gender, race, ethnicity, etc.) and lifestyle (i.e., family role, hobbies, habits, etc.). This step may be the most challenging, but your efforts here will pay off in the end.
Step 4: Engage your Audience
Now that you have defined your audience, you can leverage a myriad of intercultural communication tactics to engage your audience. Two examples immediately come to mind — human interest stories and video.
If you are looking to move people with emotion, a human interest story is a fantastic tool. Interview someone who experiences the challenges you discovered in your research. Highlight his/her experiences with descriptive language and supporting quotes. By featuring real-life struggles, you will transport your audience into your subjects’ circumstances, allowing them to empathize. One example is my blog that shows the unique hardships of Brazil’s impoverished people in the favelas and indigenous people in the Amazon.
Video is an incredibly powerful tool to express verbal and non-verbal communication and to present dynamic visuals. If you want to educate your viewer and compel them to remember what they learned, try a video blog. I posted this one recently: Brazil and Covid-19: Three takeaways from three months of research.
Step 5: Leave a Call-to-Action
To make a difference in your chosen country, you must offer your audience the opportunity to take meaningful action. I frequently use a donation approach in my communications about Brazil. However, your call-to-action might be different (i.e., contact your representatives, wear masks, volunteer, check on your neighbor, etc.).
Now it’s my turn to leave a call-to-action. To support Brazil’s impoverished or indigenous people, I ask you to consider donating to The Favela Foundation, APIB — Coalition of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, or Brazil Foundation in Action. Do you know how else we can help global cultures fight the hardships of COVID-19? I would love to hear from you!
References
Martin, J. N. & Nakayama, T. K. (2018). Intercultural Communication in Contexts, 7th Edition. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Sriramesh, K. & Vercic, D. (2009). The Global Public Relations Handbook: Theory, Research, and Practice. Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.
https://ufl.instructure.com/courses/396120/files/49322911/download?wrap=1
Lehavy, O. (2019, October 7). Four writing tips to help students with final projects and papers. Medium. https://medium.com/@ophirlehavy/four-writing-tips-to-help-graduate-students-with-final-projects-and-papers-535d615242eb
[Photo of notepad]. Windows Report. https://cdn.windowsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/notepad-modern-design-concept.jpg
[Photo of steps]. Unsplash: Photos for everyone. https://unsplash.com/photos/irPPtsUqJfA
Reineke, C. (2020a, July 19). As the Brazilian government abandons its marginalized people, community leaders step up to help their own. Medium.
Reineke, C. (2020b, August 2). Brazil and Covid-19: Three takeaways from three months of research. Medium.
Reporters without Borders. (2020). Brazil. https://rsf.org/en/brazil
