Media Convergence and the Cross-Cultural Communication of Media Events: A Sharon Stone Case Perspective

Impulsed by both the communication globalization and new-tech application, media convergence has become an inevitable trend for the media development of countries around the world. Based on the analysis of enormous controversies provoked by Sharon Stone\´s "karma" remark, this article probes the meaning of media convergence to the cross-cultural communication of media events. Our research has four major findings. First, media convergence greatly promotes the communication of cross-cultural events, in that the mature degree of media convergence determines the speed, span and depth of communication for cross-cultural events; the mutual complementarity and regurgitation feeding between traditional and new media in media convergence are very distinctive; media convergence avoids the language barrier of cross-cultural communication in certain degree. Second, media convergence reconstructures the communication rules of media events, in that journalism and communication transits from single-authority to multi-authorities; traditional media still plays the guidance role of public opinion; network media is becoming the concourse of multi-authorities. Third, the weakening of cross-cultural interpretation for the key word is the important cause of cross-cultural conflicts, which is shown in the cultural conflicts in network nationalism frame and the subculture conflicts in the same ethical frame. Fourth, the ideological opposition is the profound reason for cross-cultural conflicts. We conclude that the meanings of media convergence to the cross-cultural communication of media events manifest in multiple levels. On one hand, media convergence technologically creates enormous communication energy and consequently promotes the content communication for cross-cultural events and narrows the span of space and time between our culture and the others. On the other hand, the technology convergence has not yet produced the culture convergence; in contrast, intervened by multiple power- s as nationalism, subculture conflicts and ideologies, media convergence intensifies, amplifies and increases cultural conflicts and prejudices, creating new barriers for cross-cultural communication.