Culture and Online Communication

Abstract

Approaching the year 2000, a chorus of complaints arose about the lack of research on intercultural CMC. Jarvenpaa and Leidner’s (1998) lament that ‘[w]hile there is a wealth of research on computer-mediated communication and research on cross-cultural communication, there is a paucity of research on cross-cultural computer-mediated communication’ was echoed by Hart (1998); Kim, Hearn, Hatcher, and Weber (1999, p. 144); Ess (2001, p. 9); St Amant (2002, p. 212); and in Herring’s (2001a) evaluation that ‘there has been little scholarship that evaluates critically the effects of computer networking on the world’s cultures’ (p. viii).