A Cultural Dimensional Study Of Chinese,Japanese,and American Hospital Homepages With A Visual Grammar Approach

Based on the visual grammar theory and Hofstede’s cultural value dimension theory,this paper analyzes the influence of culture on hospital website by using multimodal comparative analysis of 110 images on the homepage of 15 hospital websites in China,Japan and the United States.The purpose is to clarify the important role of image as a social symbol in the process of constructing meaning through the comparative analysis of image data on hospital websites in different countries.It is found that from the perspective of the representational meaning of visual grammar theory,there are more group photos of medical staff on the Chinese hospital websites,less single images,and more hospital outside building images,reflecting the tendency of collectivism.The Japanese hospital website also reflect the collectivism,but there are more group photos of doctors with patients and more hospital inside building images.The American hospital website shows the tendency of individualistic value,there are more single photos of doctors or patients.From the perspective of the interactive meaning,on the Chinese hospital website,the social distance between doctors and viewers is far,and the interaction is less,there is high power distance between doctors and viewers,highlighting the authority and professionalism of hospitals and experts.The power distance and social distance in Japanese hospital websites are similar to those in Chinese hospital websites;doctors and patients on American hospital websites have close social distance and more interaction,reflecting the low power distance value.In addition,the homepage of each hospital in China has the Communist Party of China images,the homepage of Japanese hospitals pays attention to details,and the homepage of American hospitals has images of people of different races.These phenomena are related to the special culture between different countries.By using visual grammar theory to analyze the images in the hospital homepage,this paper finds that visual grammar theory is suitable for cultural comparative analysis of hospital homepages,which can guide hospital website designers to design suitable homepage from the cultural level,so as to promote cross-cultural medical communication between different countries,it is convenient for patients from different countries to get medical treatment in China.