Mixed Methods Research – Nonverbal Observations of Cultural Convergence in Online and Offline Contexts: Testing Hall’s Low- Vs. High-Context Framework

Abstract

ABSTRACT Extending the existing low- and high-context culture theoretical framework, the current research examined the extent to which globalization has shaped low- and high-context cultures in relation to nonverbal communication. The current study employed an exploratory sequential design mixed research method. The first phase of the study observed cultural convergence evident in people’s nonverbal communication in real life and reported the observations qualitatively. In the second phase of the study, a quantitative content analysis was carried out. The content analysis, namely sentiment analysis, examined the occurrences of people of diverse nationalities expressing their emotions when they provide reviews of airlines on a travel website and empirically test the relevance of low- and high-context theoretical framework in the era of globalization. A total of 85,228 reviews of 592 airlines available on a travel website were downloaded using a web crawler. The qualified records used for analysis included records from the following regions: Africa, Asia, Australia, Latin America, Northwestern Europe, Southern Europe, and United States. An analysis of variance on the number of words people used in writing travel reviews online yielded significant variations among the seven regions. This data also sheds light on cultural convergence.