The effect of culture and the cultural framework of language on online information - processing

Abstract

The present work examines the effect of the user’s language, as a vehicle for cultural values, on their processing of the information contained within a website. A sample of 491 internet users from two different cultures (British and Spanish) was created. Half the users were asked to browse the experimental website in their mother tongue, while the other half browsed in their second language (British participants browsing in Spanish and the Spanish browsing in English). The key findings of the research demonstrate that information-processing is moderated by the user’s culture and the language in which they process the information.