Abstract: Public services advertisements (PSAs) develop very fast in modern society and PSAs designed under different cultural backgrounds have their own national characteristics and cultural values. Therefore, analyzing PSAs from the perspective of culture can promote the cross-cultural communication. Geert Hofstede’s five value dimensions include individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distances, masculinity versus femininity, long-term versus short-term orientation. These five cultural dimensions provide a new perspective for people to deal with cultural differences and to carry out cross-cultural exchanges. This paper attempts to use Hofstede's culture dimensions to analyze and discuss the differences between Chinese and American PSA. 

Key words: public services advertisement; Chinese; American; differences; Hofstede’s culture dimensions

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

1. Introduction-1

2. Hofstede’s Value Dimensions-3

2.1 Individualism versus Collectivism-3

2.2 Uncertainty Avoidance-4

2.3Power Distance-5

2.4 Masculinity versus Femininity-5

2.5 Long-term versus Short-term Orientation-6

3. General Comparison between Chinese and American PSAs-7

3.1 Similarities in Chinese and American PSAs-7

3.2 Differences in Chinese and American PSAs-9

4. The Differences in Hofstede’s Value Dimensions-10

4.1 Differences in Collectivism versus Individualism-11

4.2 Differences in Uncertainty Avoidance-12

4.3 Differences in Power Distance-14

4.4 Differences in Masculinity versus Femininity-16

4.5 Differences in Long-term versus Short-term Orientation-17

5. Conclusion-19

Reference-20