A Study Of Cross-cultural Differences Between China And The United States From The Perspective Of Cultural Dimension

The media form of television bears the role of cultural output and cross-cultural communication of various countries,and its influence exceeds that of other cultural forms.The academia has done a lot of research in the field of film and television symbolization and cultural communication.Family sitcoms have become one of the research focuses.Cultural difference is one of the important fields of cultural communication,However,The study of cultural differences is of great significance and reference value to the study of TV communication.At this stage,the media research based on the cross-cultural theory is relatively backward.This is a quantitative thesis using the methodology of content analysis and comparative culture study,selects the Chinese sitcom Home with Kids and American sitcom Modern Family,from which the author compares the divergence of family culture between China and American.Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions of cultural difference theory as the horizontal analysis system,and ten subprojects of TV program form theory as the vertical analysis system,a quantifiable framework of cultural value dimension is jointly constructed.Then,the thesis helps to understand the differences between Chinese and American TV programs in the construction of cultural values and the internal relationship between them and the social and cultural values system.The final research shows that there are great cultural differences between Chinese and American families in education concept,parent-child relationship,mode of thinking,time view and other dimensions.Besides,The results of this study are different from those of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions,which are embodied in three dimensions:individualism,long-term orientation and uncertainty avoidance.Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimension can explain the differences between Chinese and American family culture,and the details about it locate in the third and fourth chapters of this paper.This study can offset the shortage of domestic research in this field.