Based on intergroup contact theory, we conducted a social media campaign to improve the relationship between Chinese sojourners and Singaporeans. We found that perceived discrimination fully mediated the effects of face-to-face contact as well as imagined contact on intergroup prejudice. An investigation of joint effects showed that, for the campaign audience, online contact campaign, instead of face-to-face contact, significantly reduced their perceived discrimination, which in turn reduced intergroup prejudice. We discuss explanations for the impact of social media on intergroup relationships and implications of targeted social media campaigns in the context of a growing crisis in global immigration.

This study aims to identify rhetorical features of a genre of news reporting known as Japan bashing, criticism based on unfounded claims about Japanese economic or trading practices often inflammatory in nature (Błażejowski, 2009; Morris 2011; Stronach, 1995), showing how U.S. mainstream media have inadequately reported on the trade disputes between the U.S. and Japan, essentially taking a one-sided approach. Cultural stereotyping tends to form the substance rather than facts that would justify their approach taken. This stereotyping—a matter of misperception—and how it is used by some journalists to inform the public becomes a vital study in the social sciences, especially for intercultural communication. That the selected news articles herein come from mainstream and respected publications at a time thought to be a “post-racial era” challenges the view that people of today are well-educated or advanced about intercultural or diversity issues. This study also identifies how our mass media have failed to properly inform about the trade disputes by the lack of investigative reporting. This study further hopes to contribute to intercultural relations by correcting misperceptions generally held about Japanese culture.

The feasibility of the imagined contact approach on reducing prejudice toward Koreans was tested on Japanese samples. Two studies were conducted to probe into the effectiveness of this method. In study 1, participants (N = 96) were asked to respond to social distance, intergroup anxiety and realistic threat perceived toward Koreans and Chinese, in order to determine if indeed, they exhibit prejudice against these ethnic groups. Results showed that social distance and intergroup anxiety predict outgroup evaluation and acceptance. Also, Japanese hold more negative images toward Koreans. In Study 2, participants (N = 160) were randomly divided into three groups: positive imagined contact condition; negative imagined contact condition; and control condition. They read and imagined about a scenario, describing intergroup contact between themselves and someone of Korean background. Results indicated that those who imagined a positive contact showed greater positive attitude toward Koreans, while those in the negative and control groups were less favorable. The latter two groups did not significantly differ in any measure, suggesting that negative imagined contact did not affect outgroup attitudes. These finding suggest that imagined contact has potential in reducing prejudice toward outgroups in a relatively ethnically homogeneous society, such as Japan.

Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) is an essential ability for language learners, which has raised lots of research. However, while comparing with the studies on the learners’ ICC, we can find few empirical studies on the ICC of the language teachers, especially those teachers of Chinese as a foreign language. This study attempts to explore the difference of the ICC between the novice teachers of Chinese as a foreign language and expert ones, the reasons and possible influences of such difference, as well as some implications from it. 20 teachers of Chinese as a foreign language (10 expert teachers and 10 novice teachers) from different universities in Beijing participated in the interview designed by this study. The analysis shows that expert teachers have a keen awareness of the culture teaching and have the confidence to teach culture in the class, while the novice teachers tend to avoid the culture teaching and pay more attention to the language teaching. Therefore, the novice teachers need intercultural training so that the students can enhance their ICC.

Persons or objects on signs seem to have a culturally preferred direction of facing (Kumakura, 1990). Is such a difference in direction also true of pictures on traffic signs between Japan and Germany? People in Japan and Germany drive on the left and the right side of the road, respectively. In this respect, a question arises: Does the difference between left-hand and right-hand traffic in these two countries influence the way the pictures on traffic signs face? The aim of this study is threefold: 1) to collect functionally equivalent traffic signs in Japan and Germany; 2) to compare the pictures on the signs between these countries with respect to their facing directions; and 3) to try to clarify whether and to what extent differences in facing directions are found on the traffic signs. The results are expected to contribute to the study of the relationship between writing directions and facing directions of pictures.