A Cross-Cultural Analysis: American and Hong Kong Newspaper Organizations’ Social Media Use

Abstract

Many newspaper organizations use social media to report news. Social media platforms gather people from different countries with different cultural backgrounds together. Such platforms help newspaper organizations deliver their news to users around the world. Without geographic barriers, it is wondered whether culture affects newspaper organizations’ social media use. Therefore, we explore the differences in social media use in America and Hong Kong. Our main research question concerns whether cultural differences are related to presentation and interactions with and relationships between different variables and feedback from Hong Kong and American audiences. We conducted a content analysis of five newspaper organizations from both places. We found that post lengths were longer, and the frequency of including related news links and reporters’ names was significantly higher in Hong Kong than on American Facebook pages. However, the numbers of comments on and shares of posts from American Facebook pages were significantly greater than for Hong Kong Facebook pages. Furthermore, the relationships between different variables and post likes differed between Hong Kong and American newspaper organizations’ Facebook pages.