Is Web 2.0 Culture-Free or Culture-Bound? Differences between American and Korean Blogs

On social media, are Westerners more likely to use the first-person pronoun "I" and Easterners more likely to use the collective "we"? Do users from high-context cultures use more visual expression than their counterparts in low-context cultures? These kinds of questions suggest that Web 2.0 might be culture-bound, thereby explaining the popularity of local and regional equivalents of Facebook and Twitter in Eastern countries. This paper proposes operationalizations and measurements of cultural characteristics unique to Web 2.0, which were tested through a content analysis study comparing technical and social aspects of a U.S. blogging site and a Korean counterpart. Findings reveal that, while U.S. users show greater individualism as predicted, Korean users show compensatory effects, with evidence supporting cultural-difference theories as well as the emerging phenomenon of cultural homogeneity. Theoretical and practical implications are drawn for understanding cultural diversity and the role of technological affordances in mirroring as well as shaping culturally governed communication patterns.