Nurturing Translocal Communication: Russian Immigrants on the World Wide Web

Publisher： Society for Technical Communication

ISSN： 0049-3155

Source： Technical Communication, Vol.48, Iss.4, 2001-11, pp. : 435-448

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Abstract

Immigrant Web pages reflect the rise of a new kind of intercultural communication that mediates interaction between local and global culture not through polarization but through mixture and hybridization. Immigrant communities online are translocal, providing resources for both specific towns and cities as well as for a global immigrant population. Many Web designers have little knowledge of the generic rhetorical features of this type of Web site, yet such knowledge is important for designers encountering a world that is increasingly mobile and transnational. This article analyzes the rhetorical content on Russian-American immigrant Web pages. Rather than treating Russian and non-Russian identity as separate entities, Russian immigrant pages often blur distinctions between the different cultures. While the results of this analysis are limited to Russian-American immigrant sites, they can nonetheless inspire additional research about how other groups create transnational culture in cyberspace.