International communication (also referred to as the study of global communication or transnational communication) is the communication practice that occurs across international borders. The need for international communication was due to the increasing effects and influences of globalization. As a field of study, international communication is a branch of communication studies, concerned with the scope of "government-to-government", "business-to-business", and "people-to-people" interactions at a global level. Currently, international communication is being taught at colleges worldwide. Due to the increasingly globalized market, employees who possess the ability to effectively communicate across cultures are in high demand. International communication "encompasses political, economic, social, cultural and military concerns".
Historical context
Communication and empire Efficient communication networks played crucial roles in establishing ancient imperial authority and international trade. The extent of empire could be used as an 'indication of the efficiency of communication'. Ancient empires such as Rome, Persia, Axum and China, all utilized writing in collecting information and dispersing, creating enormous postal and dispatch systems. As early as in fifteenth century, news had been disseminated trans-nationally in Europe. 'The wheat traders of Venice, the silver traders of Antwerp, the merchants of Nuremberg and their trading partners shared economic newsletters and created common values and beliefs in the rights of capital.'
The advent of telegraph and time–space compression
In 1837, Samuel Morse invented the telegraph. The telegraph worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations. It was the first mode of communication to eliminate the effect of distance, allowing for a near instantaneous connection. Given its speed and reliability in delivering information, telegraph offered opportunities for capital and military expansion. It also increased market integration. It did so by lowering the cost of trade by increasing the capacity utilization of shipping. As showed in Table 1.1, the establishment of cable hardware signifies global power order in late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Table 1.1 Cabling the world
The era of news agencies The newspaper industry and international telegraph networks mutually facilitated each other. Telegraph communications drastically altered the way in which news was produced. The individual items of modern newspapers became no longer selected on the basis of spatial proximity, but following newly emerging journalistic criteria of news relevance. As the supply and demand of the newspaper industry rapidly increased in the nineteenth century, news agencies were established successively. The French Havas Agency was founded in 1835, the German agency Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau in 1849, and the British Reuters in 1851. These three European agencies began as financial-data services for bankers, but eventually started to operate internationally and extended their coverage to world news. They were all subsidized by their respective governments. By 1866, national news agencies were beginning to rise in many European countries. While they covered and sold news locally, they relied on the major services for coverage and sales abroad. The global media and news agencies have played a fundamental role in contemporary globalization, making possible the feeling of instant communication and the experience of global connection. They have played a pioneering role in the use of new technologies, such as the telegraph, which have altered the nature of news. Technological innovation continues to be a major area of competition between global news agencies.
Radio broadcasting Western countries seized the chances to implement radio communication after the first radio transmissions of human voice in 1902. But the two mechanisms of radio broadcasting were distinctively different. In the US, the Radio Act of 1927 confirmed its status as an advertising-funded commercial enterprise, while in Britain, the public broadcasting pioneer British Broadcasting Corporation set up in the same year. During the First World War and the Second World War, radio broadcasting played a significant role in both domestic public opinion management and international diplomacy propaganda abroad. Even in the Cold War times, this radio-dominated international communication still featured in propaganda respective ideologies. The prominent example is the Voice of America, which ran a global network to indoctrinate "American dream" to its international audience. Radio also played an important role in the ideological confrontation between the east and the west. Broadcasts could penetrate the "Iron Curtain" and directly address the "enemy", which was extremely important in the early days of the Cold War. Western broadcasting offered an alternative channel for the flow of new information and ideas. Around a one third of Soviet urban adults and about half of East European adults were regular listeners of Western broadcasts at the time. Shortwave transmission sites, known as "number stations" were used by both the United States and Soviet governments to send propaganda to foreign countries. They were also a secure means of sending coded messages to intelligence officers operating in other countries. As long as an agent had the station, the air time, and encryption code, he could receive a one-time message that only he could understand. Not only Western countries have been impacted by communication through the use of radio broadcasting. An example of this is the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. In April 1994, a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and neighboring Burundi crashed under mysterious circumstances. This sparked a massing killing spree that took place over the next three months and left over a million Rwandans dead. The Rwandan media have been accused of inciting hatred that led to violence by using an ethical framework to report a political struggle, as well as spreading fear, rumors, and panic. They also incited ordinary citizens to take part in the massacres. Through its broadcasts, popular radio station RTLM attracted unemployed youth and Interhahamwe militia, a far-right organization.
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