Does your culture impact your web skills?
How about the way you perceive web advertising?
Last week, we talked about what types of advertising appeal to horizontal and vertical cultures.
This week, we’ll take a closer look at cultural distinctions among web users, including individuals’ media consumption patterns, web proficiency, challenges faced, and their overall stance on web-based advertising.
Cultural Orientations
The conventional understanding of individualism and collectivism, typically framed as opposing concepts on a binary spectrum, warrants a more nuanced and comprehensive approach.
Recent research has shed light on the limitations of the conventional unidimensional viewpoint, leading to the emergence of a more intricate classification known as Vertical and Horizontal Individualism and Collectivism (Triandis, 1995, 2001).
As we saw with the study last week, this four-fold classification framework offers a valuable instrument for investigating the potential role of cultural orientations in shaping people’s attitudes and behaviors towards media and persuasive communications.
This empirical study employs this four-fold classification to scrutinize cultural predispositions within an individualistic culture, coupled with people’s responses to persuasive communication on the Web.
The Study
In the course of an online survey administered to web users, this study’s findings reveal that these unique cultural orientations wield discernible effects on people’s perceived web skills and their attitudes toward web advertising, both in broad and specific contexts.
Overall, respondents in the four groups shared similarities in media usage patterns and reported no significant differences in perceived challenges related to the Web.
However, when it came to perceived Web skills, those with a strong horizontal individualistic orientation appeared to hold a perception of higher skill levels compared to the other groups.
Web Advertising
What truly stands out is the intriguing revelation that individuals with diverse dominant cultural orientations indeed exhibit varying general attitudes toward Web advertising.
Notably, the four groups also differed in their perceptions of the informativeness and entertainment value of Web advertising.
Strikingly, those with a pronounced horizontal individualistic orientation tended to express more negative opinions regarding Web advertising, deeming it less informative and less entertaining than their counterparts.
The idea that individuals with high horizontal individualism may perceive Web advertising as targeting a mass audience rather than catering to their personal uniqueness is intriguing.
These respondents also reported the highest Web skills among the groups, perhaps driven by their desire to control what they view on the Web and customize persuasive messages to satisfy their quest for individuality.
In sum, these findings underscore the pivotal role of cultural orientations in shaping consumer predispositions towards persuasive communications on the Web.
In addition to individual attributes like Web skills and knowledge, cultural values and orientations can be regarded as a foundational and steadfast underpinning for shaping beliefs and attitudes.
These cultural predispositions play a critical role in influencing an individual’s outlook on a wide range of topics, their motivations, objectives, and behaviors.
Success Across Cultures 