Huddled Masses-Communication and Immigration

Migration and immigration are presently taking place at an unprecedented rate around the world. The potential for chaos and crisis for the nations playing host to diverse groups of immigrants and refugees is quite apparent. While in some nations multiculturalism and diversity are praised and being integrated into educational curricula, anti-immigrant sentiment runs high in others. Making a multidisciplinary examination of the social implications of immmigration, this work addresses the issue from three points of view - communication, environment-behaviour, and architecture and design. From communications studies, significant issues relate to nonverbal and interpersonal communication and mass media availability and use. From the field of environment-behaviour studies, the authors take culturally different perceptions of environment, issues of place attachment, and the impact of the built environment on communicative behaviour. The field of architecture and design studies isolates culturally defined needs and demands placed on the built environment as worthy of enquiry.The purpose of this book is to make available to researchers and students of intercultural communication, cross-cultural communication and media studies, and environmental designers, architects, geographers and environmental psychologists the current research into the influence of communication patterns on cultural adaptation necessitated by immigration.