Dear Air-ists, JCMC's special thematic section on Culture and Computer-Mediated Communication (edited by Fay Sudweeks and Charles Ess), is now available on the JCMC website: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/ This issue was inspired by (and includes) several presentations made originally at our biennial conference series on "Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication" (CATaC) in 2004, Karlstad, Sweden. This issue brings together both: successful uses of the frameworks developed by Edward T. Hall and Gert Hofstede for analyzing cross-cultural communication online (primarily, interestingly enough, advertising websites - and in this genre, these frameworks "work" better for fast-food and universities [!!!] than for, say, durable goods - see the first article by Marc Hermeking, Institut für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universtaet, Munich) and critiques of Hall and Hofstede, coupled with proposed new models - including one based on the work of W.E.B. Dubois - vis-à-vis critical applications and empirical studies in Singapore, international online classes, and "mainstream" vs. sites designed by and for African-Americans (Brock). The explicitly ethical impetus behind this work is: how do we develop forms of cross-cultural communication online that do _not_ colonize "the Other" by imposing Western cultural values and communicative preferences? That is, despite our fond belief that these technologies are "just tools," i.e., somehow culturally and communicatively neutral, they demonstrably embed and foster the values and preferences of their Western [indeed, largely white male middle/upper-class] designers - thus threatening a form of "computer-mediated colonization" as they are enthusiastically diffused throughout the globe in the name of wiring an electronic global village, ostensibly for the sake of democratization, freedom of expression, economic prosperity, etc. By contrast, if such computer-mediated colonization is to be avoided, we need to become much more savvy about how to undertake cross-cultural communication online in ways that acknowledge, respect, and foster the cultural values and communicative preferences that define distinctive cultural identities and persons. Enjoy! Charles Ess Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University 900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230 Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435 Home page: http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html Co-chair, CATaC'06: http://www.catacconference.org Co-chair, ECAP'06: http://www.eu-cap.org Professor II, Globalization and Applied Ethics Programmes Norwegian University of Science and Technology NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway http://www.anvendtetikk.ntnu.no/pres/bridgingcultures.php Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23