The Social construction of intercultural communication: a Delphi study

Abstract

Through the Delphi method, we draw on experts in the field of interculturalism – and on our own previous Critical Discourse Analysis-based research – to critically examine media accounts of intercultural communication in Spain. We argue that understanding how the media portray intercultural communication from the point of view of experts is a vital research task, since the media and experts are key social actors who reproduce existing cultural meanings and who can also transform discourses and beliefs. We present a typology of media representations – conflictive interculturalism, possible interculturalism and unresolved interculturalism – and demonstrate how experts’ responses can be contextualised within this typology. Our findings also suggest, first, that multiculturalism does not necessarily translate into greater intercultural communication, and second, that television constructs intercultural interaction from a stance of lack of equality in diversity, resulting in an impossible encounter marked by violence or the ‘carnivalesque’. Finally we propose some measures to foster intercultural exchange in multicultural societies.