ABSTRACT:
In the process of "innovations and reproductions of cultures and societies" which today is shaped by global communication of pictures, concepts, signs and events through media, dvd and video the question remains how do people coming from different cultural background understand the global transmitted information.
The presenter wants to draw attention to the fundamental difficulties such a global communication process has to face. These difficulties are based on the fact that human beings built assumptions and background knowledge in their minds that work as filters for general comprehension and for the global information process (considering the theory of Sperber/Wilson1986/1995/2004). These assumptions and background knowledge are cultural based and manifested through language (Chomsky 81, 86,1995). Although the assumptions work as previous knowledge and are used to create new knowledge, the presenter wants to point out that if the background knowledge of the global communicators is little or none a positive integration of new information is distorted or impossible and so is the innovation process built on this information.
The idea of the paper is explained with the difference between the African and the Western concept of time. The paper will conclude with the suggestion that the success for positive intercultural communication and innovation processes lies in the efforts of participants of the global communication to get access to the mutual cultural assumptions and background knowledge.
