What is communication?

What is your opinion on nationality biases in online communication?

• Observations: The online pop culture is a rather international community. Especially English contents created by Americans are consumed in a wide range. Most of my Facebook friends are German, some of them aren't German but only a few of them come from the US, and yet I find American contents in my newsfeed all the time. People share all kinds of memes, blog entries, videos, webcomics about humor, science, political and social issues and much more. However, I think there is an asymmetry when it comes to who reads what: Non-Americans consume much more American contents than Americans consume Non-American contents. As a result a lot of Americans who publish something online don't seem to realize that they may have a large non-American audience. For example, as a German, I sometimes read something about pop culture/society which perfectly applies to Germany, and I agree with the text, I can really relate to it, I feel very addressed, but then they show some statistical data about the given phenomenon in the US and I am like "okay, this wasn't about me after all". Also, English contents usually implicitely assume their audience to be American. These assumptions turn up all the time. I think the misconception people like me have about these contents is that for many non-native English speakers, English equals internationality. Anglophones have no way to indicate linguistically whether a content is intended just for family and friends or a wide, anonymous audience, or if they want to discuss nationally or internationally. If I publish something in English, it's definitely meant to address everyone. If the content concerned only Germans (e. g., if it was about a very Germany-specific cultural or political or social issue), or if it was a private post for family and friends, I'd write it in German. Of course I know it's theoretically possible that a person from another country who learned German as a foreign language comes across my content as well, but if they read it, disappointed by the Germancentricity, it's their fault. After all, the choice of language clearly states who is the intended audience. On the same lines, if I find an interesting thing in, say, French, I expect it to be French-specific, and I might choose to read it anyway, but I won't be surprised if it doesn't address me. It looks like I subconciously distinguish English from other languages in this regard. In contrast, for most Americans American audiences seem to be some kind of default. If not otherwise indicated, English contents are for Americans. However, I was wondering whether by this policy to use the German language descibed above I discriminate against people whose first language is German but are not from Germany. Just as Americans tend to neglect the fact that there are a lot of non-American native English speakers on the internet, let alone all the L2 English speakers with the attitude "English = international", maybe I neglect all the people from Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg or Belgium, who are native German speakers, too. I wouldn't be surprised if, say, Austrians often find German contents which bring up topics which are an issue in Austria as well as in Germany. Maybe I shouldn't assume people reading texts written in German are necessarily from Germany, unless the topic is very Germany-specific such as an election. This problem can probably be extended to other languages with a large number of speakers if the most part of those speakers lives in one very prominent country, such as French, which is spoken all over the world but mostly in France. Another thing I noticed is that, even though I expect English contents to be international, "internationality" doesn't include all countries equally. In an English-speaking online discussion in a forum or in Social Media, I expect other participants to be from Norway or Czech Republic or New Zealand or Canada or Italy. However, before considering all these things this post is about, I used to ignore that people in Nigeria or Indonesia or Bolivia or Bangladesh have internet access and speak English, too. Maybe even if I published an internationally intended English-speaking post, I would still subconciously assume the audience to be from a western, industrialized, predominantly Christian country. It's like a shell with multiple layers, the innermost layer being the US and the outermost layer being developing counties, and everyone can see their own layer and the layers which are enclosed in their layer. However, although nobody is surprised if someone on the internet is not from the US but still from their own layer, people generally assume other people on the internet to be American, regardless of the fact whether they are American themselves. I've seen online communication in which none of the participants was American, but still everyone was constantly referring to the US, comparing their own country to the US, assuming everyone else was from the US etc. It looks like as soon as an international conversation is held in English, everything is embedded in some kind of US-centric frame. In contrast, international conversations in Esperanto don't have this peculiarity. So somehow everyone adopts this American way of thinking that the English-speaking internet is American, although non-Americans aren't surprized if someone else is not American as long as the other person is in their own layer. Questions: To what extent to you agree with my observations? Do you think this kind of bias is harmful discrimination or not really a problem? Do you think we have to raise awareness in society and tell people how diverse internet audience can be? Have you ever felt underrepresented/ignored on the internet? Are you part of a national minority in the language community of a particular language? What are your experiences? Do you think you've ever unintentionally excluded nationalities online? If you're American, do you consider the possibility non-Americans might read your English posts? If your first language is not English but has a lot of native speakers in various countries, do you take these countries into account when publishing something in your language? What is your attitude to English speaking contents? Do you expect them to be national or international? To what extent do you feel addressed by English speaking contents, if your first language is not English? Do you make the same distinction between English and other languages as I do? What kind of audience do you have in mind when publishing contents on the internet? Do you choose a language as a tool to indicate the intended audience? What is your opinion on the conflicting uses of English? Who is "more right"? Do you think native English speakers should have a right to use their own language in private to discuss nationally, just as everyone else can, without loads of foreigners wishing to join in, even if the debated topic can be applied to other countries? Or do you think native English speakers should just acknowledge that everyone speaks English and that excluding half of their audience is rude? Is loss of national online communication a price you have to pay for the privilege not to have to learn a foreign language to be successfull in life? After all, as a native English speaker you can reach a lot of people very easily if you want something to be international. If a non-native English speaker wants to be heard internationally because they have something important to say, they either have to struggle with a foreign language or their message won't spread as far as it could. The fact that non-native English speakers feel addressed by English contents has both advantages and drawbacks depending on your intentions. Do you think that especially "internet celebrities" (i. e. people who regularly publish contents and who have followers they don't know personally) have some kind of responsibility to address everyone who follows them? Let's say someone starts a blog which is interesting for the general public (i. e. not (only) about the blogger's personal life, doesn't require inside information) but nevertheless thinks only family and friends will find this interesting. After a while the blog is becoming more and more famous, though, and is read by people the blogger doesn't personally know. The blogger can guess fom the hints in the comment section and maybe from Google analytics that for some reason a lot of people from India are following the blog. Is it okay for the blogger to say "fuck it, this was never really intended for public anyway, let alone people outside my country, and if they choose to read this, it's their problem they don't like it, nobody makes them read it, I can offer whatever I want ..." or should the blogger rather try to include the Indians, considering they are quite numerous? This doesn't mean the blogger has to do extensive research on India (you write what you know), but you can very easily just acknowledge "I know you guys are reading this", such as replacing "I'm sure you've experienced ..." by "if you're from my country, I'm sure you've experienced ..." just to show some respect. What is your opinion on that?

• Answer:

  The question is so long that I demand a TL;DR version!