Internet Community Couchsurfing as the Tool for Overcoming Ethnocultural Stereotypes

Student: Puzanskaia Svetlana

Educational Programme: Advertising and Public Relations (Bachelor)

Year of Graduation: 2018

This paper discusses ethnic and cultural stereotypes elimenation by intercultural communication in hospitality exchange communities, in particular Couchsurfing community. The hypotesis that intercultural communication at Couchsurfing community contributes to elemination of ethnic and cultural stereotypes if user has an experiense as a host or a guest in this community is suggested. The methodology of a quazi-experiment including a survey diagnosting a level of prejudice thinking about cultures and ethnic groups among hospiyality exchange users who have an experience as host or guest is given. Also a methodology of a field experiment including a provocative experiment at Couchsurfing community is given. The final results of this paper could not let us to confirm or deny the hypotesis. Keywords: intercultural communication, stereorype, ethnic and cultural syereotype, internet-community.

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