Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Case Study Part 4

Perception is reality. This basic theory continues explain the problems people face when communicating, especially across cultures. Perception is defined by Gamble and Gamble as “the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensory data in a way that enables us to make sense of our world.”[1] A person interprets his world based on the way he sees it which is affected by past and present constructs. It is this definition that supports the phenomenological tradition of communication which places the individual’s experience and interpretation as the utmost authority.[2] When studying cultures, this means that knowing how individuals in a culture interpret their experience is crucial for understanding the totality of the culture itself.

Based on this evidence it is important that we take another look at the culture of former East Germany. As Americans, we believe that the fall of the Berlin Wall which marked the end of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) saved the people of East Germany from dire oppression. However, the people of former East Germany voice a different opinion. Their conditions appeared unbearable when the world saw what was on the other side of the Wall in 1989, but the East German citizens, in general, reported living “perfectly ordinary lives.”[3] Although the East Germans had lived under what Americans consider cruel and unusual conditions, aspects of the communist culture had been adopted as the people’s own and helped to shape their new sense of identity. This paper will compare the culture of traditional Germany with the culture of current East Germany to show the influences that communism as a governing power had on the identity of the former citizens of East Germany.



[1] Larry A. Samovar, Richard E. Porter, and Edwin R. McDaniel, Communication Between Cultures: Sixth Edition. (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007), 129

[2] Com Com Com

[3] Mary Fulbrook, The People’s State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker (London:

Yale University Press, 2005), xiii

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