The 11th Biennial Convention of the World Communication Association

Because of the interest in culture and intercultural communication on the part of members of the World Communication Association, WCA has held its conventions in many parts of the world. In principle, convention sites alternate between the Atlantic and Pacific areas, so that the convention was held four years ago in Britain, two years ago in Singapore and this year in Finland.

The opening session of the convention was held on July 28. Antti Taskanen, the rector of the University of Jyvaskyla; Aino Sallinen-Kuparinen, the department chair of the Department of Communication; and Ronald L. Applebaum, the secretary general of the World Communication Association, addressed the participants.

Following the opening session, there was a welcoming reception for the participants, hosted by the city of Jyvaskyla at town hall, where participants were welcomed by the mayor.

Communication studies is a relatively new field in Finland, but the University of Jyvaskyla has the largest Department of Communication in the country. The department actively campaigned to have the convention held there, because it was felt that the convention would be an encouragement to the study of communication in Finland. The convention was supported by the University of Jyvaskyla, the city of Jyvaskyla, and Finnish companies, including Finnair.

Papers presented at the convention covered a wide variety of areas in communication studies and speech communication, and they dealt with both theory and practice. Fields that papers covered included interpersonal communication, political communication, performing arts, intercultural communication, communication education, broadcasting, rhetoric and oratory, organizational communication, research, and communication and health care.

More specifically, papers were presented on such topics as college students' friendship; personal distance of Japanese people; post-cold war rhetoric; the future of intercultural communication research in the United States, South Africa, and Germany; the cinema in Singapore; television in India; journalism in the USSR; communication in multinational organizations; teaching public speaking; argumentation in Korean and American college students; perceptions of politeness in English and Japanese; linguistic pragmatics and language teaching; and comparison of disparate cultures, including Finnish, American, Korean, and Japanese cultures. Some presentations emphasized comparisons across cultures and involved cooperation among people from various countries. There were several presentations by participants from Japan.

More than seventy Finnish participants attended the convention, and their presence gave other participants good opportunities to meet Finnish people and learn about their cultural background and their daily lives. Though it is well known that the Finnish and Japanese languages are similar, what is less well known is that the cultures and communication styles of Japanese and Finnish people also have similarities. People of both cultures tend to distrust verbalization and try to communicate using silence. Both hesitate to put forward their own opinions and like to use the phrase "We Japanese/Finns...."

The University of Jyvaskyla offered fine facilities for the conference. Conference participants were given a tour of the Communication Department, which includes a television studio from which broadcasts can to made all over Finland and a computer lab used for communication research.