The effect of social networks on intercultural communication and awareness: The Facebook case

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of social networking websites on intercultural communication and awareness among English majoring students, Facebook as the case. The study covered three main steps; the data collection process through 14 week Facebook Group page activity and interviews and Intercultural Awareness Test, the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data gathered. There were two groups of participants, one for experimental group with whom the Facebook Group page activities are held in accordance with the formal instruction process, and control group who took traditional instruction without any extra aid or application. In the study, both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used through questionnaires and focus group interviews. The qualitative data of focus group interviews were transcribed and analyzed according to content analysis techniques and quantitative data of Intercultural Awareness test were analyzed using SPSS software. The results of the data analysis showed that Facebook has a significant effect on developing intercultural awareness and communication among university students. The study also showed that the participants are both curious and fancy about using Facebook as an educational tool. It is concluded that Facebook, among the social networking websites, seems to be very feasible and effective tool to be used by both instructors and students to establish and develop intercultural awareness and communication