Research and Pedagogy in Intercultural New Media Studies

New media are ubiquitous, changing the landscape of intercultural communication. Intercultural new media studies (INMS), first introduced and conceptualized by Robert Shuter in 2012 in his article in the Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, is an exciting new field of study which explores intercultural and international communication in a digital age. It promises to contemporize existing intercultural communication theories by exploring their relevance and salience in a mediated world. INMS also offers the prospect of developing 21st century theories of intercultural communication that include new media platforms. Finally, by exploring the relationship between culture and new media, intercultural new media studies details how culture affects the social uses of new media, and how new media affects culture. This article, and the nine studies in this special issue, are an important step in further developing intercultural new media studies and realizing its’ promise. [China Media Research. 2012; 8(4): 1-5