The Influence Of High/Low-context Culture And Power Distance On Students' Media Choice To Communicate With Teachers In China And America

Due to the fast development of modern technology, the number of communication channels available to people is continuously increasing, which enhances people's effectiveness of transferring messages. People's media choice behavior is often influenced by many factors in which culture plays a significant role.The study combines Hall's high- or low-context value and Hofstede's power distance value with media richness theory. It attempts to prove the influence of cultural values that shed on students'media choice behavior in China and America. Previous studies have categorized China as a high-context and high power distance culture and America as a low-context and low power distance culture, so the study will firstly concentrate on the comparative research of the two cultural values. Previous studies also find that people in high-context and high power distance cultures will be more likely to choose face-to-face communication to show non-verbal communication and also to convey an appropriate level of respect. Moreover, according to the media richness theory, different communication channels will generate different communication effects. Therefore, the study will secondly explore the effect of cultural values on the choice of communication media at the individual-level. And four hypotheses are proposed.The current study attempts to investigate through an empirical examination, based on the questionnaire used in Richardson and Smith's (2007) research concerning about the media choice behavior between Japanese and American students. It is composed of three parts: high- or low-context scale, power distance scale and communication media scale. 30 questionnaires from each country are chosen at random. Some of the findings have confirmed the results of previous studies while others have posed challenges. Students from the two countries don't exhibit any significant differences in high- or low-context and power distance values. However, a positive effect of high-or low-context value on the students'use of face-to-face communication is indicated. Moreover, post hoc analyses reveal that American students will be likely to use E-mail more than Chinese students while Chinese students rate telephone as significantly more than American students do. In light of these findings, the thesis finally points out the limitations of the study and proposes some recommendations for future relevant studies.