Mediated Intercultural Communication: An Ethnomethodological Study of Asian Expatriates’ Social Media Engagement

Abstract

This study attempted to answer Bennett's (1998) question: "How do people understand one another when they do not share a common cultural experience?" in the context of mediated communication. It explored what are the Asian expatriates' practices when they engage in mediated intercultural communication. Specifically, the study aimed to answer the following research questions: (1) When do Asian expatriates engage in mediated intercultural communication? (2) Why do Asian expatriates engage in mediated intercultural communication?; and (3) What social media platforms do they use and for what purposes? Being interpretive in nature, the study used ethnomethodology as its analytical frame in order to locate meanings in the social media engagement practices of 20 Asian expatriates. Data were collected from the asynchronous online forum between November and December 2015 that were analyzed with the help of NVivo 10. Three themes emerged from the data: (a) Social Media Engagement as Everyday Practice consisting of eight sub-themes: The Practice of Ground Rules; The Practice of "Greetings"; The Practice of Thoughtful Thinking; The Practice of Saying "Thank You"; Keeping Conversational Partner; Renewing Relationships; Source of Information; and Source of Entertainment, (b) Social Media Engagement as a Practice of Building Professional Communities consisting of two sub-themes: Developing Expatriation Work and Intensifying Information, and (c) Social Media Engagement as a Search for Virtua/ Space consisting of two sub-themes: Trading Tools and Rendering Rich Media. Don Ihde's Embodiment Relations was used as a frame to make sense of the themes. Theoretical, methodological and practical implications for mediated intercultural communication were drawn from the results of the study.