Challenges of Intercultural Communication in the Modern Global World

Abstract

The article highlights the current trends in the development of intercultural communication studies and their growing influence on social life. The exploration purpose is to present the innovative ideas that have appeared in the intercultural communication theory during the last few decades. The theoretical basis of the research is the works of Western scientists in anthropology, communication, and cultural studies, such as E. Hall, E. Triandis, M. Herkovits, and others. One of the most radical concepts that deconstructs previously established theories and views on the typology and division of cultures is the concept of cultural relativism. The article emphasizes the characteristic concept features, which promote the principles of tolerance and equality in the approach to cross-cultural analysis. Cultural relativism is an absolute denial of ethnocentrism, which is inherent in all national cultures and serves as the ideological and psychological basis for the emergence of numerous theories of inequality. Fostering and promoting cultural relativism ideas seem to be necessary in order to form a positive ground for fruitful economic and cultural
cooperation between nations worldwide. As a result, the concept of multicultural education emerged among Western intellectuals, and was designed to make the ideas of cultural relativism a part of the mass worldview and public consciousness,
changing the established stereotypes and prejudices.