Web Resources for Intercutlural Communication Classes
Topics for this Page | Commercial Sources | Current Events | Mapping & Geography | Understanding Human Cultures | Travel
Films for the Humanities & Sciences sells educational media. Their editorial board chooses each program on the basis of the importance of its subject, the quality of its production, and its relevance as an instructional aid. Their site insures the availability of thousands of video, CD-ROM, and videodisc programs cover a broad range of subject areas appropriate for schools, colleges, and public libraries. Their list is particularly strong for cultural and ethnic studies. http://www.films.com
Intercultural Press is the premier publisher of books and materials in the field of intercultural relations. Their focus is on the practical concerns of living and working in foreign countries, the impact of cultural differences on personal and professional relationships, and the challenges of interacting with people from unfamiliar cultures, whether in one’s own country or abroad. http://www.interculturalpress.com/
Lonely Planet guide books. This is a commercial site for an excellent set of guidebook. Most of the writers have British background. For each of the many countries for which they have guidebooks, this site has a good introduction to the country including a small collection of photographs for that country. http://www.lonelyplanet.com.au/lp.htm
Moreover.com offers the top stories from over 1,500 sources, grouped into 150 categories, as of October 1999. Moreover.com's is provided by The Economist and Financial Times, both London based business journals. Stories are organized in a variety of general categories, by industry, and by region or country. It is the last category which should make this web site useful to students of intercultural communication. http://www.moreover.com/
Search Engine Colossus was created by Bryan Strome. You probably didn’t know that there are search engines which focus on a particular country or region. As of October 1999 this metasite provides a directory for nearly 150 countries or regions. Within each directory you will find links to search engines which are country- or region-specific. Be prepared to be overwhelmed! http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/
Amiglobe, a world geography software program created by Olivier Collard. This is a useful program for learning the names of countries. Will not help much with cities, islands and water areas. You can download a trial version. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9604/
About.com's Geography provides a wide range of web based resources including clip art, countries & nations, cultural geography, facts - world, maps, and photos of landscapes. Matt Rosenberg is the web page editor. There is a section called "In the Spotlight" which approaches geography as current events. http://geography.miningco.com/
Atlapedia Online contains full color physical and political maps as well as key facts and statistics on countries of the world. The **Countries A to Z** section, provides facts, figures and statistical data on geography, climate, people, religion, language, history, economy & more..for each individual country. The **World Maps** section, provides full color physical and political maps for regions of the world. http://www.atlapedia.com/
Library of Congress's Geography and Map Reading Room has many types of maps that can be useful in the study of cultural, economic, and political geography, http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/
The two most congested continents, if you are talking about nation states, are Europe and Africa. If you want a fun way to test your knowledge of the countries located on those continent Lyndsey's Mania. The direct link to the Africa map test is http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/afrquiz.html. The direct link to the Europe map test is http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/euroquiz.html. There is also a test for continents and oceans, http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/worldquiz.html
TravelAfrica Nation Scans is a well researched link library to Africa news services and cultures studies. Originating at Abilene Christian University, there are also links to Christian religion sites for each African country. http://www.genesis.acu.edu/chowning/africa/scans.htm
Amnesty International Library contains its reports which can be counted on to identify a region or country’s worst human rights problems. AI has a definite political agenda, e.g., they support abortion rights and opposes capital punishment. Nevertheless, AI reports are generally considered to be accurate and insightful and its core values of human rights aren’t particularly controversial. You can find their Recent Reports (Annual Reports; Campaign Reports; Thematic Publications) & Country Reports (A-Z Index; Year and Continent Index) in their online library. http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/
AsiaSource is a comprehensive new resource from the Asia Society. The site has articles on arts & culture, business & economics, government, society & history. http://www.asiasource.org/
Britannica Online’s Exploring Nations of the World is another well maintained source of information about nation states. As of October 1999, access required a free subscription. But this service may be easier to access through your local library web site. This site provide a richer source of graphic and sound information than say the CIA Factbook. Typical information provided includes: the encyclopedia article for the country, a thumbnail of the flag of the country, a thumbnail of a map of the country, events in the country from recent yearbooks, national statistics. The National Statistics section covers a broad range of information: General Facts gives basic factual information, ethnic composition, vital statistics, social indicators, economy, etc. http://www.britannica.com
Library of Congress, Country Studies, A continuing series of books prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program sponsored by the Department of the Army. Most books in the series deal with a particular foreign country, describing and analyzing its political, economic, social, and national security systems and institutions, and examining the interrelationships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural factors. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/
COMFILE is a set hyperlinks to communication on the Internet for many different categories. To link to resources for the study of intercultural communication go to: http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/jreinard/internet.htm#CULTURAL
Country Reports provide information from around the world. A resource for business, tourists, students and teachers. Eradicate Conflict by Building Cultural Awareness. http://www.countryreports.org/
Culturalgrams are condensed previews of the national cultural of many countries around the world produced at Brigham Young University. They are highly recommended. For a full description, samples, and ordering instructions see: http://www.culturgram.com/
The Edge: The e-journal of intercultural relations. http://kumo.swcp.com/biz/theedge/
ELDIS (Electronic Development and Environment Information System) offers access to information on individual countries and continents. Topics include agriculture, environment, economics, gender, politics, education, and health. As of October 1999 the Country Profiles section only contains the nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Until the new profiles are completed, users may still access older eldis resource collections for North America, Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa from this site. Eldis is funded by the Danish development agency Danida, and hosted by the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex (UK). http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis
The Internet TESL Journal: English as a Second Language (ESL) curriculum continue to be refined for different audiences both in the United States and overseas. Started in 1995, the Internet TESL Journal has brought together articles, research papers, lesson plans, classroom handouts, and teaching ideas to this website. Users can also browse through the contents by category, such as questions, techniques, and lessons. http://iteslj.org/
SIL International (the SIL stands for Summer Institute of Linguistics) is anthropological approach to linguistics. It is features Ethnologue (13th Edition) which is a catalogue of more than 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries. This is the most powerful tools for describing cultures available on the Internet. http://www.sil.org/
The Human Development Report is product of the United Nations Development Programme. The site features their annual reports and links to other site. The underlying theme of this site is there is great inequity is the distrintion of material resources. http://www.undp.org/hdro/
U.S. Department of State, Human Rights Report. This report is issued each year. While prepared by independent scholars with superior credential, any report such as this one can be shaped by the political interests of the government publishing the report: http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1998_hrp_report/98hrp_report_toc.html
Human Rights Watch is sponsored by a group who has a definite social action agenda based on their version of universal human values. They produce a thorough annual report which provides highly critical information about governments around the world. http://www.hrw.org/
The Center For World Indigenous Studies (CWIS) provides the World Wide Web Virtual Library. The Indigenous Studies Virtual Library. Primarily a link center to other sites. The site has an underlying civil rights agenda for indigenous peoples. http://www.cwis.org/wwwvl/indig-vl.html
Introduction to Islam by M. Cherif Bassiouini.The purpose of this book is to convey to a non-Muslim audience an understanding of Islam, its history, culture, and contribution to civilization. The mix of an easy-to-read text and visual representations including maps, charts, pictures, and drawings with informative captions explains the important message of Islam http://www2.ari.net/gckl/islam/titlepage.htm
Lycos RichMedia is a multimedia search engines which covers a huge number of files and used the very fast FAST Search technology.. Users can click on search returns to directly access the content (pictures, movies, streams, and sounds) instead of going through the source site first. In most cases, however, links are also provided to the source. We tested the program using Bhutan as the object country and pictures for content. The search rapidly identified 163 images. At least 25% of the images where pictures of Bhutan flag and maps. Another 25% of the images where stamps, for which Bhutan is well known. Still by following up on the links available with the best images (we were interested in ethnological content) we found well over a hundred images. Most had good identifications. Hours later we were exhausted and we still have links left unchecked. http://richmedia.lycos.com/
The Management of Social Transformations (MOST) is a research program, designed by UNESCO, to promote international comparative social science research. Its primary emphasis is to support large-scale, long-term autonomous research and to transfer the relevant findings and data to decision-makers. There are a number of documents available at this site which will be of interest to students of intercultural communication. Most documents are available in English, French, and Spanish. Of particular is the MOST online Journal on Cultural Pluralism which began publication in 1999. http://www.unesco.org/most/welcome.htm
Multicultural Pavilion: An interactive educational internet project. Mostly general information for teachers of things cultural, with some culture specific information. The site has a few articles. http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/multicultural/home.html
National Geographic Expeditions. This site is maintained by the USA's National Geographic Society, providing an ever changing source about the world. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/
The Society for Applied Anthropology provides access to a number of current research paper. There is no general index or table of contents, at least I couldn’t find either. However, by using their search engine you can locate interesting, full-text papers. http://www.sfaa.net/
The Port of Seattle in conjunction with the King County (Washington) school system has developed the Trade Winds Project. This site provides case studies involving people working in international trade and transportation. Issues focus frequently on communication and culture, but include all subjects in the grade school curriculum. Each 45-60 minuite case has a student version and a teacher version of the case. The quality of the cases are excellent, although the cases have a Seattle and Asian rim perspective. http://www.seatac.org/portandyou/educ/02teach.htm
Central Intelligence Agency's World Fact Book. This source is likely to be the most up-to-date publication containing almanac type information. Information is provided for all countries, including those not recognized by the U.S. government. Information includes: a small picture of the flag, a nice size simple map, and data about the government, geography, people, ecnomy, communication, transportation, and the military. http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
Yahoo's Society and Culture menu. Typical of any web search engine, the quality of the web sites is very poor, but there is some gold there too. http://dir.yahoo.com/society_and_culture/
Community Service Programs. Answer the question: What you need to know before you volunteer? Provide a list of Volunteer Websites. Site provided by Scripps College. http://www.scrippscollege.edu/~dept/career/intern/volunteer.htm
Mother Earth Travel. http://motherearthtravel.com/
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