From Two Kinds of Fear in Communication to Transformative Intercultural Communication for Creative Democracy

Kim, Jiwon

From Two Kinds of Fear in Communication to Transformative Intercultural Communication for Creative Democracy

James Alexander Gordon on 2nd March 2026

Author Information

Jiwon Kim, Monmouth University, United States

Abstract

Democracy is creative. Dewey argued that democracy must be continuously renewed by each generation to avoid stagnation. The task can be accomplished only by inventive effort and creative activity, and communication is at the core of creative democracy (Dewey, 1939). However, is free communication with no fear possible, in the new realities of social media, schools, landscape, and broader society that have created social forces that challenge core assumptions about democracy? These challenges get bigger and deeper, between different generations, race, genders, political orientations and ideologies, while proving that we have not made much progress in democracy and need to create and recreate it. In this study, I take up such warnings by arguing that transformative intercultural communication can be inventive effort for creative democracy. By focusing on Dewey’s notion of communication, this study examines two kinds of fear that block communication: uncertainty (vulnerability, ambivalence) and power associated with language. Then, this paper explores how those fears can be changed through transformative intercultural communication, particularly by highlighting aesthetic, poetic, and attentive listening, social imagination, and multi-directional communication that exist in relationship to the experiences of those who participate in communication. This study suggests that Dewey’s analysis of intercultural communication as leading to a fusion of horizons can help us move beyond the impasse of multiculturalism and democratic education, in persistently and newly segregated contexts within our society and across the globe, and learn and grow as community.