New Media’s Impact on China from a Culture Perspective

Cultural products can reflect as well as influence people’s cultural perspective. Through examining the cultural products distributed in new media, we can understand the impact of new media on China from a cultural perspective. In the first section, Chinese culture within the framework of Hofstede’s culture dimension is laid out, which is described as high power distance, long-term orientation, weak uncertainty avoidance, emphasizing accomplishment, restrained, and very collectivistic. In the second part, we review the evidences explaining what Chinese cultural values are reflected in new media. We find that Chinese collectivism is evident from institution online presentation to individual social networking, underlying the formation of social capital on the online social networks. In the last section, we explain the relationship between new media and cultural change and discuss how new media may influence Chinese cultural change. Despite the short history of new media, it potentially exerts power along with modernization in influencing people’s cultural orientation in collectivism–individualism. In conclusion, as the new media changes communication and becomes a more important platform disseminating cultural products, we submit that cultural products in new media reflect Chinese cultural value and may influence Chinese cultural change in the long run.