Volume 11, No 2.

Culture and the structure of international communication¹

George A. Barnett & Eunjung Sung

Introduction

Culture is a group’s shared collective meaning system, including its values, attitudes, beliefs, customs and thoughts. Intercultural communication is thus the exchange of information between well-defined groups with significantly different cultures. Globalisation is ‘the process of strengthening the worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local events are shaped by circumstances at other places in the world’ (Giddens 1990, p.64). One potential consequence of globalisation is cultural homogenisation due to information exchange among people from different cultural groups.

Traditionally, world system theory has ignored the exchange of information among nations. The literature from world system theory (Chase-Dunn & Grimes 1995; Wallerstein 1976) on the antecedent determinants of international interaction suggests that economic relations within nations provide the primary organising principle of international relations. However, recent research (Barnett 1999, 2001, 2002; Barnett & Choi 1995; Galtung 1993; Huntington 1996) indicates that cultural factors such as language and religion play a significant role in the process.

This article uses network centrality to examine the relationship between culture and international information flow. Centrality is of particular significance because world system theory (Barnett & Salisbury 1996; Chase-Dunn & Grimes 1995; Wallerstein 1976) argues that international interaction is structured along a centre-to-periphery dimension. Centrality is the number of links or the social distance required to reach all other countries in a network. Therefore, it may be worthwhile to examine how national culture is related to international information flows in constructing the patterns of intercultural communication.

This article investigates the relationship between national culture and international information flows. Specifically, it examines the relationship between national culture and the internet and international telecommunication flows. In the conclusion, this article discusses national culture’s relation to the globalisation of international information flows.

Theoretical background

Culture and intercultural communication

Culture may be defined as a ‘historically created system of explicit and implicit designs for living, which tends to be shared by all or specially designated members of a group at a specific point in time’ (Kluckhohn & Kelly 1945, p.98).

Culture consists of the habits and tendencies to act in certain ways, but not the actions themselves. It is the language patterns, values, beliefs, customs and thought patterns. Goodenough (1964, p.36) defines culture not as things or behaviour but rather as ‘the forms of things that people have in mind, their models for perceiving, relating, and otherwise interpreting them’. Geertz (1973) treats culture as an ordered system of meanings and symbols in which social interaction takes place and develops.

Culture is a socially shared activity, and therefore a property of a group rather than an individual (Nieberg 1973). It is normative and may be best represented by a measure of central tendency of the group mind (Durkheim 1938). It does not derive from the internal conditions of individuals but rather from society’s social conventions. Durkheim (1953, pp.25-26) calls these shared cognitions ‘collective representations’. Collective representations do not derive from individual minds but from the association of minds. Collective representations are formed during the process of social interaction. Without general agreement about the meaning of symbols and other communication rules, social interaction would be impossible. As members of social groups communicate, they negotiate the shared meanings of symbols. As a result, culture is external to the individual. Thus, in order to understand culture one must examine the aggregate.

Consistent with these notions, Hofstede (1991) defines culture as ‘the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another’ (p.25). Also, he emphasises that culture is not a property of individuals but of groups. Hofstede (1980) suggests that the relevant dimensions of culture should be identified and investigated while conducting international research (p.42). To examine national culture, he surveyed the values and perceptions in 53 countries and three multi-country regions: Arabia, West Africa and East Africa (p.58). His data were collected from employee attitude surveys undertaken between 1967 and 1973 within IBM. Based on statistical analysis, he suggested that national culture may be differentiated by four dimensions: power distance, collectivism vs individualism, femininity vs masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance.

Power distance is ‘the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally’ (Hofstede 1991, p.28). Societies in high power distance are more autocratic, and low power distance societies value equality, with a preference towards democratic processes (Hofstede 1980, p.98).

Individualism pertains ‘to societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family’ (Hofstede 1991, p.51). Collectivism ‘as its opposite pertains to societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive ingroups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty’ (p.51). In societies high in individualism, people look after their own interests, and value their independence. Societies low in individualism support group values and beliefs and seek collective interests (Hofstede 1980, p.214).

Masculinity pertains ‘to societies in which social gender roles are clearly distinct. Femininity pertains to societies in which social gender roles overlap’ (Hofstede 1991, p.82-3). Societies with high masculinity tend to admire qualities such as ambitiousness, achievement, money, performance and assertiveness. Societies low in masculinity emphasise people, quality of life, helping others, preserving environment, and not drawing attention to oneself (Hofstede 1980, p.261).

Uncertainty avoidance focuses on how cultures adapt to changes and cope with uncertainty and ambiguity. Cultures high in uncertainty avoidance have a low tolerance for uncertainty, so these societies create rules and regulations. Cultures with low uncertainty avoidance tend to be less rule-oriented (Hofstede 1980, p.153).

Scholars have examined Hofstede’s work to provide validation of the dimensions and to explore its theoretical and practical contributions. The dimensions have been used as a framework for cross-cultural inference and generalisation (Au 1999). Applications of the dimensions have been studied to examine conflict and negotiation (Lee & Rogan 1991; Ohbuchi & Takahashi 1994), compliance-gaining and influence strategies (Sanborn 1993), managerial decision-making (Vitell, Nwachuku & Barnes 1993), job and communication satisfaction (Bochner & Hesketh 1994) and persuasion (Aaker & Maheswaran 1997).

Intercultural communication is the exchange of ‘cultural’ information between two groups of people with significantly different cultures:²

Intercultural communication focuses on the exchange of information among two or more social systems embedded in a common environment that result in the reduction of uncertainty about the future behavior of the other system through an increase in understanding of the other social group. (Barnett & Lee 2002, p.276)

In the past, scholars have limited its study to the individual level. However, intercultural communication occurs on many levels (Smith 1999), such as via mediated communication. International organisations working throughout the globe also link cultures, helping their members to understand the similarities and differences among groups. Intercultural communication is thus the exchange of information between well-defined groups with significantly different cultures.

Historically, linkages among different cultural groups have increased, resulting in globalisation – ‘the process of strengthening the worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local events are shaped by circumstances at other places in the world’ (Giddens 1990, p.64). That is, events occurring at one place reduce the uncertainty of the future behaviour of groups at another location. The increase in transborder communication has led to the rapid global diffusion of values, ideas, opinions and technologies, i.e. the underlying components of culture. Transborder communication has opened cultural boundaries and created a global community with an increasingly homogenous culture, particularly regarding political, economic, educational and scientific activities (Beyer 1994; Robertson 1992).

Giddens (1990) argues that globalisation is an inherent part of modernisation. One consequence of modernisation is the increase in time-space distanciation that renders physical distance less of a barrier to intergroup communication. This is due in part to innovations in telecommunication and transportation. Globalisation stretches the boundaries of social interaction such that the connections among different nations become networked across the globe. The mass media and other communication technologies compress time and space, becoming a catalyst for globalisation (Giddens 1990; Robertson 1990).

This article explores the relationship between national culture and the structure of international information flows. Specifically, it examines the relationship between values of national culture as defined by Hofstede’s dimensions and the structure of the internet and international telecommunications. Also, it examines the relationship between national economic development and a country’s position in the structure of international information flows. According to world system theory (Barnett & Salisbury 1996; Chase-Dunn & Grimes 1995; Wallerstein 1976), international interaction is structured along a centre-to-periphery dimension with peripheral societies specialising in the production and export of labour-intensive, low-wage, low-technology goods desired by more central nations. In return, the core produces capital-intensive, high-wage, high-technology goods in order to export to the periphery.

Traditionally, world system theory has ignored the exchange of information among nations. It has only recently been discussed in these terms (Barnett & Salisbury 1996; Chase-Dunn & Hall 1994). It argues that economics is an antecedent determinant of international interaction and that the economic relations are the primary organising principles of international communication. Thus, according to world system theory centrality should be strongly related to economics (GDP per capita) rather than national culture.

Based on the theoretical background discussed above, the following research question and hypotheses are proposed:

RQ 1: What is the relationship between the international telecommunication network, the international internet and Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture?

H 1a: Hofstede’s four dimensions of national culture are significantly related to a nation’s centrality in the international telecommunication network.

H 1b: Hofstede’s four dimensions of national culture are significantly related to a nation’s centrality in the international internet network.

H 2a: Hofstede’s four dimensions of national culture are significantly related to a nation’s overall position in the international telecommunication network.

H 2b: Hofstede’s four dimensions of national culture are significantly related to a nation’s overall position in the international internet network.

Method

The data

National culture. Hofstede (1991) argues that conducting cross-cultural comparisons with a single transnational organisation (IBM) represents an ideal situation for identifying differences in national value systems because the subjects are similar on all attributes except nationality. Through statistical analysis he found that the sample differed from country to country on four dimensions: social inequality, including the relation to authority (power distance); the relation between the individual and the group (collectivism vs individualism); femininity vs masculinity; and uncertainty avoidance. For this study national culture was operationalised using Hofstede’s (1991) measures of the four dimensions: 1) collectivism vs individualism, 2) femininity vs masculinity, 3) uncertainty avoidance, and 4) power distance.

Communication structure

The structures of international telecommunications for 1999 (see Barnett 2002), and the internet for 1998 (see Barnett, Chon & Rosen 2001) are operationalised as communication networks as suggested by Barnett and Lee (2002).³

International telephone traffic. Data on the international telecommunications network were collected by the International Institute of Communications and were published in TeleGeography; these are expressed in Mitts (millions of minutes of traffic) (Staple 2000). There are 122 countries in the 1999 data set. Research indicates that the data are reliable. Barnett (2001) reports autocorrelations ranging from .821 to .937 among the networks for 39 nations annually from 1991 to 1996.

International internet traffic. Data on the bilateral internet hyperlinks among nations were obtained from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The number of inter-domain hypertext links embedded in websites between all TLDs (top level domains, such as .ca for Canada) of OECD member countries and gTLDs (generic top level domains, such as .com or .net) were gathered for July 1998 (OECD 1998). They consist of 29 countries and six gTLDs (.com, .net, .int, .gov, .edu and .org). While these data represent approximately 96% of internet traffic, missing are such significant internet users as Brazil, Israel, India, Singapore, Taiwan and China.

Because no one TLD totally represents the United States, .edu, .us and .gov were combined to designate the United States. The other gTLDs – .com, .org, .int and .net – were excluded because access to these is not exclusively American.

Network analysis

Communication structure may be examined through network analysis. Network analysis is a set of research procedures foridentifying structures in social systems based on the relations among the system’s components rather than the attributes of individuals (Rogers & Kincaid 1981, p.75). The method may be generalised to describe the patterns of communication among nations. This article uses the descriptions of the relations among nation-states based on thefrequency of communication mediated through telecommunications and internet hyperlinks as reported by Barnett (2002) and Barnett & Salisbury (2001).

In this article, two measures of structure are employed. One is a measure of centrality. Centrality is the mean number of links or the social distance (the inverse of the frequency of communication) required to reach all other countries in a network, such that the lower the value the more central the nation. The indicator of centrality used in this research is Bonacich’s eigenvector measure (Bonacich 1972). It is appropriate in those instances where the network is completely interconnected and the strengths of the links given with greater precision than simply link/no link. To test the significance of the relationship between centrality and culture, the measures of centrality will be correlated with each of Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture and a .05 rejection level employed. Centrality is of particular significance because world system theory (Barnett & Salisbury 1996; Chase-Dunn & Grimes 1995; Wallerstein 1976) argues that international interaction is structured along a centre-to-periphery dimension.

The second measure of structure employed to describe the networks is multi-dimensional scaling. It describes the overall underlying structure of the international system based upon the patterns of communication among the nations. Barnett (2002) and Barnett et al (2001) used multidimensional scaling to examine the international telecommunications network for 1999 and the internet for 1998 with the metric algorithm from UCINET-X (Borgatti, Everett & Freeman 1992). The analysis resulted in two dimensions for telecommunication, accounting for 61.2% of the variance in the network, and three for the internet, accounting for 91.5%. The individual countries’ loadings on these dimensions will be correlated with Hofstede’s four dimensions of national culture to determine the relation between culture and international communication. Again, a .05 level will be used to test significance.

To determine the overall relation between national culture and communication structure, two canonical correlations will be calculated. Canonical correlation is the generalisation of multiple regression to those situations in which there is more than one dependent variable.⁴

Results

Centrality and culture

Table 1 presents the correlations between centrality in the international telecommunications and internet networks and Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture. Individuality is significantly related to centrality in both networks (telecommunications, r = .463, p < .000, N = 62; internet, r = .533, p < .007, N = 24) and masculinity is significantly related to centrality in the telecommunication network (r = .280, p < .028). All other relations are not significant.

To evaluate the impact of national culture on centrality in the networks, independent of economics and population, multiple regressions were performed with the cultural dimensions, gross domestic product, and population as the independent variables and centrality as the dependent variable. For the telecommunication network, R2 = .557 (F = 10.07, p < .000) with only GDP and individualism as significant predictors. Using only these two predictors, R2 = .531 (F = 29.49, p < .000). R2 adjusted for sample size = .513. While the economic indicator was clearly a better predictor (â = .617, t = 6.05, p < .000) than individualism (â = .223, t = 2.19, p < .033), the results indicate that national culture is a significant predictor of international telecommunication.

For the internet, the multiple regression with the two independent variables, R2 = .714 (F = 26.20, p < .000). R2 adjusted for sample size = .687. Again, while the economic indicator was clearly a better predictor (â = .67, t = 5.62, p < .000) than individualism (â = .40, t = 3.35, p < .003), the results indicate that culture is a significant organising factor of the internet. These findings are summarised in Table 2. 

 

Network structure and culture

Table 3 presents the correlations among Hofstede’s four dimensions of culture and the three dimensions describing the structure of the internet, as well as the two dimensions of international telecommunications. The results indicate that a country’s lo-cation on the first dimension of the telecommunication network is significantly related to its masculinity (r = -.489, p < .000) and uncertainty avoidance (r = .355, p < .01), and its position on the second dimension is significantly related to individualism (r = -.292, p < .05).⁵

A country’s location on the first dimension of the internet is significantly related to its individualism (r = .555, p < .01). Position on the second dimension is significantly related to masculinity (r = .430, p < .05), and the third dimension is significantly related to power distance (r = -.421, p < .05).

To determine the overall relation between national culture and communication structure two canonical correlations were calculated. There were two significant canonicals for telecommunication (rc1 = .684, p < .000; rc2 = .426, p < .05). Together, Hofstede’s dimensions of culture account for nearly 65% of the variance in the structure of international telecommunications.

There were no significant canonicals for the internet. The first canonical (rc1 = .643, p < .064) explained about 41% of the variance in the structure of the internet.

N=24

Culture and telecommunications

	IDV	MAS	UAI	PDI	TELD1	TELD2
IDV	1.0000
MAS	.0884	1.0000
UAI	-.3494	-.0719	1.0000
PDI	-.6590	.0510	.2371	1.0000
TELD1	.1631	-.4889**	.3553**	-.1974	1.0000
TELD2	-.2916*	-.1663	.2097	-.0168	.2811	1.0000

 N = 61

* p < .05

The hypotheses

H1a. The results provide partial support for the hypothesis that centrality in the international telecommunication network is related to national culture. Centrality is significantly related to individualism and masculinity. It is not significantly related to either a nation’s uncertainty avoidance or power distance. Controlling for economic development, only individualism is significantly related to centrality in the international telecommunication network.

H1b. There is partial support for the hypothesis that centrality in the international internet network is related to national culture. Only individualism is significantly related to network centrality. Controlling for economic development, individualism remained significantly related to centrality in the internet network.

H2a. The results provide partial support for the hypothesis that the overall structure of the international telecommunication network is significantly related to national culture. The first dimension of structure is significantly related to masculinity and uncertainty avoidance and the second to individualism.

H2b. Again, the results provide partial support for the hypothesis that the overall structure of the international internet is related to national culture. The first dimension is significantly related to individualism, the second to masculinity, and the third to power distance.

Discussion and summary

This article has explored the complex relationship between national culture, operationalised as Hofstede’s four dimensions, and the structure of international information flows. The findings indicate that the individualism dimension of culture is significantly related to a nation’s centrality in both the telecommunication and internet networks. This relation remains even after controlling for population and level of economic development. World system theory argues that the economic relations between nations are the primary organising principle of international communication. However, these results indicate that economics alone are inadequate to explain the complexities of international communication. When controlling for GDP, individualism was significantly related to centrality in both the telecommunication and internet networks. Thus, the culture of the nations must be considered when describing, predicting and explaining international media and information flows.

However, the relation between culture and the structure of the network is not that simple. The results of the overall structural analysis indicate that the first dimension of the telecommunication network is significantly related to masculinity and uncertainty avoidance, and the second is significantly related to individualism. Also, the results indicated that national culture is strongly related to the overall structure of the internet network. Using the results of the multidimensional scaling to represent the overall structure of the networks, one finds that the first dimension of the internet is significantly related to individualism, the second to masculinity, and the third to power distance. Thus, while it is clear that culture has a role in the organisation of international communication, its exact role is unclear. While individualism is strongly related to the most prominent feature of structure, centrality, the other dimensions appear to be related to the overall structure in a less explicit manner.

Globalisation has been a focus of intercultural communication research since the late 1980s (Hamelink 1990), pervading academic, commercial and political discourse. Media technologies such as satellites and optical fibres have made the world a smaller place. Barnett (2001) describes the current structure of international telecommunications based on its patterns of use and how it has changed since the late 1970s, demonstrating that globalisation is taking place. He discusses the implications of these patterns for the development of a universal culture, suggesting that it is resulting from communication through all channels, including the mediated cultural information exchanged among various cultural groups. He states:

Over the last two decades, the frequency of interaction among the nations of the world has increased steadily. While there is regionalisation due to physical and cultural (linguistic) barriers, today, the world consists of a single integrated network of nations centered about North America and Western Europe. One potential consequence of globalisation is the cultural homogenisation or the convergence of the indigenous cultures of the world into a universal culture. (p.23)

The process of cultural globalisation leads not only to homogenisation but also to hybridisation. Along with absorption of global patterns, culturally localised or hybridised adaptation is taking place. Global forms interplay with local, national and regional patterns, producing a new pattern best characterised as hybrid (Bhahba 1994). Straubhaar (2002) argues that hybridisation is the dominant pattern of cultural interaction over time, asserting that multicountry markets are formed on a geocultural or cultural linguistic basis. Barnett (2001) finds that the current structure of the world’s communication system is organised along the lines of regional groupings of nations, generally with similar culture. The results reported in this article suggest that there is a reciprocal relationship between culture and communication structure. While the messages passing through the networks alter culture and lead to hybridisation and/or convergence, the structure of the network itself is, in part, determined by the culture of the interacting nations.

Because Hofstede gathered the data describing the national cultures during the 1970s, the relations between culture and international information flows may be considered as time ordered. Also, since the theoretically most compelling alternative explanation, that economic relations solely structure international communication, has been controlled for, the relation between national culture and the structure of international communication may be considered to be causal. Still, one weakness in this research is that it does not address changes over time in these variables during the process of globalisation (Barnett 2001). These data came from a single point in time – telecommunication and internet from the late 1990s and culture from the 1970s. Longitudinal data would provide greater confidence in the assertion that culture is a causal determinant of the structure of international communication.

Another problem is that the network is composed of a potentially biased sample. It excludes the countries of Eastern Europe and Africa because IBM, Hofstede’s setting for the research that revealed the dimension of culture, had no operations in these areas in the 1970s. However, the data from these regions suggest that Eastern Europe has strong ties to Germany (Barnett & Choi 1995) or Russia (Barnett 2001) and the Africa nations to their former colonial power with whom they share their official language (Barnett & Choi 1995).

Future research is needed to help disambiguate the relationship between culture and communication structure. It needs to examine the changes in network flows through time, relying on data from more countries, and analyse this relationship using more channels of intercultural communication, such as migration, air traffic, student flow and the exchange of cultural products (the news media) (Barnett, Chon & Rosen 2001). In this way, one could gain a more precise understanding of the relationship between culture and international information flows.

George A. Barnett (PhD, Michigan State University, 1976) is Professor and Chair of Communication at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has written extensively on organisational, mass, international, intercultural and political communication, as well as the diffusion of innovations. His current research focuses on international information flows and their role on socioeconomic and cultural change, and the process of globalisation.

Eunjung Sung is a student in the Department of Communication at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is currently completing her dissertation comparing the adoption of broadband communication in South Korea and the United States.

notes

1. An earlier version of this article was presented in the Intercultural and Development Division of the International Communication Association, San Diego, May 2003. See Barnett and Sung (2003).

2. Groups’ cultures may be considered significantly different in the statistical sense. Operationally, Barnett (1988) describes the procedures for the precise measurement of culture consistent with the theoretical orientation presented in this chapter. Lee and Barnett (1997) provide an example of their application to determine if two cultures are significantly different.

3. For a technical introduction to network analysis see Rogers and Kincaid (1981) or Wasserman and Faust (1994). Smith (1999) provides a detailed discussion of the technical terms and their mathematical operationalisations to intercultural communication.

4. The authors are aware that the samples sizes used in the analysis are smaller than recommended for multiple regression and canonical correlation (Stevens 2002). This is due in part to the unit of analysis, countries, which have a limited population, and the use of secondary data. Hofstede (1991) reports data for only 53 countries and three regions. The OECD (1998) describes the international hyperlinks among its 29 members and six top-level domains, and TeleGeography has a sample of 122 countries. These are the only published data available. Rather than not performing these analyses, the authors decided to conduct the analysis with the small samples. Every attempt will be made not to misrepresent the results. For example, the correction of the multiple correlation for sample size is reported.

5. The sign of the relationship between the dimensions of multidimensional scaling communication of structure and the dimensions of culture are arbitrary.

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