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Abstract

In their paper, "Mental Models of Communication and Television Advertising," Detlev Nothnagel and Gilda Vera Aguirre discuss the question whether and if so, how and to what extent television advertisement spots differ cross-culturally. In contrast to the majority of studies on this topic, Nothnagel and Aguirre concentrate on a protocol-based formal analysis that is statistically oriented. In a more general perspective, the relation between face-to-face communication and communication mediated by technology is scrutinized. Provided that there are important differences, one hypothesis would be that they originate in habits of communication older than those found in technically-mediated communication. That would, at least in part, presuppose a transfer between different media, linking the organization of speech with that of pictures, etc. As only comparative studies are suited to address these questions, two samples are compared in the study, contrasting German and Ecuadorian examples of data. In order to avoid an overestimation of cross-cultural differences and to get a handle on content-related fluctuations, intercultural differences are measured in a parallel fashion.

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