Communication concepts and applications

¶ … High and Low Context" by Jennifer Beer

Smile. Use personal anecdotes to establish intimacy. Be friendly and informal. Remember people's names. Don't mix business with pleasure. All these sound like smart tips for effective communication, advice perhaps we take from granted, as we have been told these adages ever since we were children. But in a multicultural, multinational workforce, what seems like obvious good manners to us may not be to someone from another culture. In her article "High and Low Context" the communications specialist Jennifer Beer (1997) explains the different rules of high and low context situations and cultures.

For example, in some nations, in contrast to our own, particularly in traditional societies or groups where people have close connections over a long period of time, a great deal may be conveyed through subtext, and how people behave with one member of a group may be different than another member because of their relationship. In low context societies, communication is explicit and relationships tend to be more impersonal. Of course, every society has different low and high context situations. In America, a person behaves with his or her family in a low context fashion, teasing siblings, treating parents with respect, and making inside jokes, while addressing all customers the same in his or her retail job. But every nation and culture will have a variety of both low and high context situations, and some nations have a greater number of low context relationships and situations than high context relationships and situations.