Cultural frames: Loci of intercultural communication asynchrony in a CBS 60 Minutes news segment

This paper utilizes as data a CBS 60 Minutes news story titled “Tango Finlandia”. In it Morley Safer steps into his role as surrogate Middle American adventurer on a voyage of discovering the ever-exotic Finn. I explore the manipulation and modification of discourse elements by Finnish contributors to demonstrate a distinctive way of framing responses to the questions asked by foreigners (in this case an American). While the interview segments are not independent of the media frames in which they are presented, the Finnish responses utilize the following three cultural frames: (1) the use of a “we+predicate” form to frame a distinctive Finnishness and positioning the foreigner as some other, (2) the utilization of a continuum of emotional expression vs. restraint to position nations as moral, cultural, and political entities, and (3) the distortion of a domestic tradition of self-racism and stigmatization for humorous effect. I claim that these cultural frames have at one level a pragmatic force and are of great consequence for Finns in constituting, managing, and negotiating their national identities. At another level, because of the complex interpretive resources required to understand the cultural framing, this implicates an exchange that has all the classic hallmarks of asynchronous intercultural communications.