Marketing and Culture in University Websites

In the article "Marketing and Culture in University Websites" Shahla Simin, Manoochehr Tavangar, and Antonio Pinna begin with the issue of information and communication technologies and raise the question of what influence technologies will have on different regions and cultures. Are the technologies contributing to the homogenization of cultures around the Western model or are other cultures using new media technology in culturally specific ways? If cultural differences are found, what role do they play? Simin, Tavangar, and Pinna base their analysis on G. Hofstede's model of cultural dimensions and N. Fairclough's concept of the commodification of educational settings.Selected university home pages are analyzed on the basis of two criteria: organization and graphical design. The analysis of the selected webpages indicates that there are differences in the depiction of local cultural values on the web and thus they follow different cultural trends.