In the chapter, we present a simple definition of culture. However, if you get into the intercultural literature, you should be aware that different writers define it quite differently. In an introduction book, we provide a succinct definition as a necessity. However, it is one of your author’s (Baldwin) position that how one defines culture depends on one’s background and reading. Thus, writers in psychology might tend to define it differently than those in anthropology. Beyond that, we notice that even in a single discipline (e.g., anthropology, communication), the general view of culture changes over time. Surprisingly, even if we look at a single moment in time, we might find differences in definition.

Thus, A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn (1952), in a frequently cited work, divide over 150 definitions into six categories:
1) Those that enumerate the contents of culture (e.g., behaviors, norms, symbols)
2) Those that focus on social heritage or tradition
3) Those that focus on ideals of conduct and/or actual behavior
4) Those that focus on how culture serves social learning, problem-solving functions
5) Those that focus on the pattern or organization of the elements of culture
6) Those that focus on the “genetic” element: symbols, ideas, and artifacts

Mary Jane Collier and her colleagues (among many other writers) present this as a starting point, but indicate that the definition of culture is moving into new directions. For example, in this essay, which is presented as a dialogue between five scholars, Gust Yep defines it as “a conceptual, discursive, and material terrain of meanings, practices and human activities within a particular social, political, and historical context” (p. 231). Baldwin, Faulkner, Hecht, and Lindsley, in a forthcoming book, categorize about 300 definitions of culture, noting how it has changed in meaning since Kroeber and Kluckhohn’s (1952) summary. Specifically, we see that many writers use culture as a variable to predict outcomes (a social-scientific approach to culture); others frame culture as the result, rather than the cause of communication (even seeing it as something that both leads to and is created by communication, much in the sense of structuration. See Chapter 8 of your theory book); and others see it in terms of power relations. Among those, some define it simply critically, for example, how certain cultural values are kept in place to suit the interests of the elite, those who make consumer products, and so on. Others treat it from a postmodern or a postcolonial lens. To put it simply, culture can be like our view of theory—it can be treated scientifically, humanistically, or critically (or in some combination of these).

References
Baldwin, J. R., Faulkner, S. F., Hecht, M. L., & Lindsley, S. (In press). Redefining culture. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Collier, M. J., Hegde, R. S., Lee, W., Nakayam, T. K., & Yep, G. A. (2002). Dialogue on the edges: Ferment in communication and culture. In M. J. Collier (Ed.), Transforming communication about culture: Critical new directions (pp. 219-280). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kroeber, A. L., & Kluckhohn, C. (1952). Culture: A critical review of concepts and definitions. Cambridge: The Museum.

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