A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Predictor Variables for Media Content Regulations

Law has been said to be a by-product of cultures. And media law is not an exception to this maxim. Nonetheless, media scholars rarely investigate cultural differences when analyzing media content regulations. The present study investigates the question of why certain countries regulate some media content, while others do not. For instance, embargoing pre-election poll results would be unconceivable in the United States and some Western countries. However, no less than 30 countries (including France) presently have laws banning the publication of pre-election poll results. The present research examines how different cultural dimensions affect the regulation of mediated messages. In this study, the predictor variables are based on Hofstede’s (1980, 2000) four dimensions of cultures (Individualism, Power Distance, Masculinity and Uncertainty Avoidance). These four dimensions are rather independent and empirically verifiable. The dependent variables are 1) whether a country restricts publication of pre-election polls; 2) whether a country has regulations regarding hard-core pornography; and 3) whether a country bans the televising of wine advertisements. A discriminant analysis found that the Individualism and the Power Distance index of each country affect the regulation of pornography. Specifically, the higher the Individualism index score a country has, the less possibility there is for it to regulate pornography. In a similar fashion, the study found that the higher Power Distance index score a society has, the less possibility there is for it to prohibit sexually explicit messages. By contrast, only the level of “Uncertain Avoidance” among the four dimensions has a significant association with the embargoing of pre-election poll publication. However, none of the four independent variables mentioned above has been shown to have a meaningful relationship with the restriction of wine advertisements on television.