Intercultural Communication on Web sites: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Web sites from High-Context Cultures and Low-Context Cultures

The aim of this study is to explore and identify the strategies used by high-context cultures in utilizing the Internet—a largely low-context medium—for communication and marketing purposes. It is hypothesized that individuals in high-context cultures are more likely to adopt the visual effects offered by the Internet to convey their messages efficiently than their low-context counterparts. How might high-context cultures make the most of the potentials offered by the Internet generation of today? Assuming that visual communication is a high priority in the design of high-context Web sites, how do the visual methods used on Web sites vary according to the communication styles in different cultures? Using Hall’s highand low-context dimensions as the main parameters, an exploratory analysis of McDonald’s Web sites identified five different strategies by which visual communication is used to support high-context communication traits.