Not Walls, ed. The authors argue that understanding the other's culture facilitates cross-cultural communication. Gudykunst and Kim believe that intercultural communication can be understood via the same basic variables and processes used to describe other forms of communication.
All communication occurs between people who have varying degree of familiarity with each other.
The key factor in understanding intercultural communication is the concept of the stranger. Understanding Communication Strangeness and familiarity make up a continuum. Thus anyone could be considered a stranger, given a sufficiently foreign context. A stranger has limited knowledge of their new environment - of its norms and values. And in turn, the locals have little knowledge of the stranger - of her beliefs, interests and habits.