INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATION "PUTTING RACISM IN THE RIGHT PLACE"
Justification of Decision:
This topic I chose quite spontaneously, after watching one anti-racism video. I find it carrying really strong message and I wanted to get to know if racism is still a hot topic nowadays.
Review:
I began my presentation with explanation with explanation that racism is based on the idea that another person is less than human -- because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor. I emphasized that racism has influenced wars, slavery, the formation of nations etc. I point out that racism now is not so drastic as it was in the past, but it still exists among us. To prove it I chose 3 cases and introduce them with group mates. After that I gave insight about what I think where racism comes from. In the end of my presentation I showed 3 videos, that even more highlighted the issues connected to racism. I ended my presentation with hope and belief that videos, social experiments, posters and communicating in general about racism would bring us to world without issues like this.
Personal experience gained:
This is a very hard topic to talk about, because I find it really unfair to consider someone less human just because his skin color, language, ethnic affiliation etc. Reading about racism nowadays and watching some social experiments was useful to open my eyes and realize that racism is still a very hot topic and it should be discussed to reduces cases like those that described in my presentation.
References:
What is racism?
Global issues - Racism
Racism hits Formula 1
Battle between Football players
Basketball teams' tweets
This topic I chose quite spontaneously, after watching one anti-racism video. I find it carrying really strong message and I wanted to get to know if racism is still a hot topic nowadays.
Review:
I began my presentation with explanation with explanation that racism is based on the idea that another person is less than human -- because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor. I emphasized that racism has influenced wars, slavery, the formation of nations etc. I point out that racism now is not so drastic as it was in the past, but it still exists among us. To prove it I chose 3 cases and introduce them with group mates. After that I gave insight about what I think where racism comes from. In the end of my presentation I showed 3 videos, that even more highlighted the issues connected to racism. I ended my presentation with hope and belief that videos, social experiments, posters and communicating in general about racism would bring us to world without issues like this.
Personal experience gained:
This is a very hard topic to talk about, because I find it really unfair to consider someone less human just because his skin color, language, ethnic affiliation etc. Reading about racism nowadays and watching some social experiments was useful to open my eyes and realize that racism is still a very hot topic and it should be discussed to reduces cases like those that described in my presentation.
References:
What is racism?
Global issues - Racism
Racism hits Formula 1
Battle between Football players
Basketball teams' tweets
INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATION "ONE BRAND - MORE THAN 200 WAYS TO COMMUNICATE"
Justification of Decision:
Since I'm studying in Public Relations in Business University I'm always curious to get to know how companies communicate with their target groups. During the classes we were talking about Cultural Iceberg visible and invisible parts, it made think whether companies adapt this theory to their marketing, public relations and advertising campaigns. I chose specific Coca-cola, because it has one of the largest market share in the world, so it sure - this company communicates with a lot of different cultures.
Review:
Firstly I told about the market share Coca-cola has, so it confirms their abilities to communicate worldwide. I even empathized the slogan they have "Think Global, Act Local". Next I gave some examples from campaigns that Coca-cola adapted to specific markets (like England) and explain why this kind of campaign would not be appropriate for some other cultures. Furthermore, I had an example of a campaign that was adapted to local market, but turn out to be a worldwide campaign.
After this small introduction, I started to point out the main idea of my presentation - using cultures visible and invisible parts to make successful campaign. I had examples from Italy, Lithuania, Denmark, India&Pakistan and South Africa. For example, they use Italian visible part - loving food and invisible part - loving to eat and spend time together, to make successful campaign. My favorite example however was from Denmark, when they used Danish visible part - greeting arriving travelers with flags with the invisible one - Danish happiness comparing to other countries. You can watch the videos pressing the buttons above to get clear awareness.
I ended my presentation with a video which gathers coca cola’s promotional activity in different countries and reminds that not everywhere people will react the same on the same activities.
Personal experience:
I really admired Coca-cola’s promotional activities...even it’s only to make profit or get the largest market share and even coca cola is not the healthiest drink, I see that coke changes the world, brings people together and not only communicates with us but gently force us to do the same with others. And in my opinion Coca-cola is one of the best example of how company should act in international market (thinking about values of the target auditory).
References:
Coca cola company
Campaign "Share a Coke"
Coca cola - Global Advertising
Coca cola - market share
Since I'm studying in Public Relations in Business University I'm always curious to get to know how companies communicate with their target groups. During the classes we were talking about Cultural Iceberg visible and invisible parts, it made think whether companies adapt this theory to their marketing, public relations and advertising campaigns. I chose specific Coca-cola, because it has one of the largest market share in the world, so it sure - this company communicates with a lot of different cultures.
Review:
Firstly I told about the market share Coca-cola has, so it confirms their abilities to communicate worldwide. I even empathized the slogan they have "Think Global, Act Local". Next I gave some examples from campaigns that Coca-cola adapted to specific markets (like England) and explain why this kind of campaign would not be appropriate for some other cultures. Furthermore, I had an example of a campaign that was adapted to local market, but turn out to be a worldwide campaign.
After this small introduction, I started to point out the main idea of my presentation - using cultures visible and invisible parts to make successful campaign. I had examples from Italy, Lithuania, Denmark, India&Pakistan and South Africa. For example, they use Italian visible part - loving food and invisible part - loving to eat and spend time together, to make successful campaign. My favorite example however was from Denmark, when they used Danish visible part - greeting arriving travelers with flags with the invisible one - Danish happiness comparing to other countries. You can watch the videos pressing the buttons above to get clear awareness.
I ended my presentation with a video which gathers coca cola’s promotional activity in different countries and reminds that not everywhere people will react the same on the same activities.
Personal experience:
I really admired Coca-cola’s promotional activities...even it’s only to make profit or get the largest market share and even coca cola is not the healthiest drink, I see that coke changes the world, brings people together and not only communicates with us but gently force us to do the same with others. And in my opinion Coca-cola is one of the best example of how company should act in international market (thinking about values of the target auditory).
References:
Coca cola company
Campaign "Share a Coke"
Coca cola - Global Advertising
Coca cola - market share
INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATION "NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION AROUND THE WORLD"
Justification of Decision:
The reason why I chose this topic was my own personal experience noticing that I often use gestures using my hands (like thumbs up, for waiving if I see someone etc.) So I wanted to go deeper and find out how this differs in case of intercultural communication.
Review:
In my presentation I firstly talked about what is non-verbal communication or so it called body language. Then I told how important it is - only 7% of the message is perceived with words, 38% from the tone of the voice and 55% is perceived non-verbally. After that I took my time to explain that non-verbal communication differs even more than verbal communication, and everybody tends to understand it in their way, using their interpretation.
Secondly, I divided body language in 8 sections - facial expressions, head movements, touching, handshakes, hand and arm gestures, personal space, eye contact and physical postures. In every section I found many examples how body language differs in the world and what is important to remember travelling to other countries.
I ended my presentation with conclusion of my own - differences in nonverbal communication between cultures are pretty striking. This means that when you need to communicate with people from different cultures, it makes sense to learn in advance about their nonverbal communication. This can save you a lot of embarrassment and misunderstanding. Of course, cultural stereotypes are just stereotypes, and you can't say that every single individual from a different culture exhibits the same forms of nonverbal communication. Still, even individuals with a lot of international experience continue to carry some or many of the signs of their culture of origin.
Personal experience gained:
The establishment of this presentation helped me to be aware of cultural differences. That is - how important it is to remember that when communicating with people from other countries it's necessary to change not only the verbal language, but also the body language; we can no longer be free to use any gesture, because it may seem offensive.
References:
Since I mostly took this information from videos I found about body language in different countries I made here a section (above) with videos I watched, so if You want to know more, just press those buttons.
Cultural Differences in Nonverbal Communication
Communication Tips - Nonverbal Communication
Body Speaks
Body Language in Different Cultures
International Body Language
GROUP PRESENTATION "LATVIA"
Justification of the Decision:
After describing other countries during the lesson, it was clear that nobody knows anything about Latvia, so we (I and my friend Sintija) decided to make a group work—presentation about Latvia—to introduce class with our country—Latvia.
Review:
In our presentation we talked about some basic information about Latvia. That is—geography (where Latvia is in the map), total area and population (we also compare it to other countries), national symbols (official and unofficial), currency (the previous one and the current one) and language (language family, linguistic relatives).
To show that Latvian language is quite different from other languages we made an interactive presentation—we made a game, where we asked to other students and teacher as well to read some of the hardest words in Latvian, for example, ķieģelis (brick), ziemeļblāzma (northem lights), ezīša kažociņš (hedgehog fur) etc.
For this task we gave the reader a candy from Latvia.
After this game we continued our presentation with story about the most famous sport in Latvia—hockey—and showed a video about Latvian hockey fans. Then we spoke about traditions in Latvia (Jāņi—midsummer festival, cemetery festival, song & dance celebration (we also showed two videos from this event - press here & here). After that we described weather in Latvia, four seasons and nature (forests, flat country, no
mountains etc.). Since we come from different cities—Liepāja and Rīga—we described them as well.
We ended our presentation with some important information how to behave in Latvia and what is important to remember when being in
Latvia, furthermore we added some useful phrases in Latvian language (and finally showed another video).
Personal experience gained:
I would like to tell in few words, what I gained in the process of preparing and presenting this presentation. First of all, it was a real blow to the patriotism of mine, since it is not often process for me to look for and find out a lot about Latvia and in the same time also about yourself, your identity and values. In terms of international communication, creating a presentation made me want to make interest in other people from different cultures; them to remember what Latvia is and how beautiful it is. Competences I gained through this presentation was being aware about Latvian cultural iceberg visible and invisible parts.
References:
Latvia's official website
Latvia
Latvia in Europe
Every culture - Latvia
Latvian travel guide - folklore and traditions
After describing other countries during the lesson, it was clear that nobody knows anything about Latvia, so we (I and my friend Sintija) decided to make a group work—presentation about Latvia—to introduce class with our country—Latvia.
Review:
In our presentation we talked about some basic information about Latvia. That is—geography (where Latvia is in the map), total area and population (we also compare it to other countries), national symbols (official and unofficial), currency (the previous one and the current one) and language (language family, linguistic relatives).
To show that Latvian language is quite different from other languages we made an interactive presentation—we made a game, where we asked to other students and teacher as well to read some of the hardest words in Latvian, for example, ķieģelis (brick), ziemeļblāzma (northem lights), ezīša kažociņš (hedgehog fur) etc.
For this task we gave the reader a candy from Latvia.
After this game we continued our presentation with story about the most famous sport in Latvia—hockey—and showed a video about Latvian hockey fans. Then we spoke about traditions in Latvia (Jāņi—midsummer festival, cemetery festival, song & dance celebration (we also showed two videos from this event - press here & here). After that we described weather in Latvia, four seasons and nature (forests, flat country, no
mountains etc.). Since we come from different cities—Liepāja and Rīga—we described them as well.
We ended our presentation with some important information how to behave in Latvia and what is important to remember when being in
Latvia, furthermore we added some useful phrases in Latvian language (and finally showed another video).
Personal experience gained:
I would like to tell in few words, what I gained in the process of preparing and presenting this presentation. First of all, it was a real blow to the patriotism of mine, since it is not often process for me to look for and find out a lot about Latvia and in the same time also about yourself, your identity and values. In terms of international communication, creating a presentation made me want to make interest in other people from different cultures; them to remember what Latvia is and how beautiful it is. Competences I gained through this presentation was being aware about Latvian cultural iceberg visible and invisible parts.
References:
Latvia's official website
Latvia
Latvia in Europe
Every culture - Latvia
Latvian travel guide - folklore and traditions