Awareness of Meaning: Intercultural Communication in Virtual Space

By: Kayla Cogle '14

Advising Faculty: Andrea Lanoux

The possibilities for language classrooms have multiplied tremendously with the arrival of technologies such as Skype and Web 2.0, and the potential for what is possible is only growing. This research focuses on a case study of The Net Generation: Russian/American Youth Cultures, a course for students of Connecticut College and the Saint Petersburg School of Higher Economics via teleconference in Fall 2011. This paper explores how intercultural communication and discourse function in a virtual setting, and how this setting makes it possible to view one’s own culture in comparative relief with another in a highly defamiliarizing way. Issues of whose cultural territory one is on in virtual space are discussed, as is the significance of courses like The Net Gen becoming more widespread.

Related Fields: Slavic Studies