Author(s)

Hui-Jung Chang

Graduate Institute of Mass Communication, Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taipei city.

The goal of this article is to explore the manifestation of culture in language usage posted by McDonald’s Facebook site operators and the accompanying replies posted by fans on the sites in Taiwan and the USA, utilizing the collectivism-individualism dimension suggested by Hofstede’s model of culture. Data were gathered from the whole year of 2012 on the official McDonald’s Facebook sites in the two countries. A semantic network analysis tool, Wolfpak, was used to analyze the words generated from the postings written by Facebook site operators and fans. In general, the study found support for cultural differences through word usage from official McDonald’s Facebook site operators and fans between Taiwan and the USA. It appeared that Taiwanese Facebook culture is characterized with the creation of a “we-identity”, with dependence more on people in authority, and a focus on money and materialism; whereas American Facebook culture is characterized with an “I-identity”, with less dependence on people in authority, and more focus on self-interests.

Collectivism/Individualism, Network Analysis, Facebook

Chang, H. (2015) Online Conversations: A Semantic Network Analysis of Cultural Differences in Conversations on McDonald’s Corporate Facebook Sites between Taiwan and the USA. Journal of Computer and Communications, 3, 94-106. doi: 10.4236/jcc.2015.36010.