Cultural Differences And Conflict Reconciliation In Online Communities

With the widespread popularity of the Internet,the world’s netizens communicate more and more frequently,and it comes communication difficulties and even some conflicts caused by cultural differences.Based on Wikipedia,a network community for cross-cultural communication,this study explores the role of cultural background in the network community from three aspects: how does cultural background influence editors’ editing behavior,how does it influence editors’ concept,and how does it influence editors’ ways to reconcile conflicts.And by observing the process of conflict reconciliation on the Wikipedia,a cross-cultural communication platform that brings together countries,the study refines the key factors that lead to consensus,providing experience for other online communities and even real-life cultural conflict reconciliation.The study selects the English Wikipedia entry "Confucianism" as the research case,selects the evolution of the entry from its establishment in 2001 to November 30,2019,using content analysis and case studies.There are three specific research questions.1.For editors with different cultural backgrounds,what are the differences in their behavior in the wiki-community? 2.What are the differences in the understanding of Confucianism among editors of different cultural backgrounds? 3.How the cultural conflicts arising in the editing process finally reach an agreement?The study encodes the edit records and discussion records of the entry,uses the cultural dimension index of the editor’s nationality to represent the editor’s cultural inclination,and uses correlation analysis to explore the relationship between the cultural background and the editor’s behavior in the wiki community.By analyzing the relationship between the six-dimensional cultural index and 14 editing behaviors,the study finds that when editing Wikipedia entries,editors’ behaviors are indeed related to cultural background,and editors with certain cultural characteristics are more inclined for specific editing behaviors.By analyzing the cultural index and the topics discussed by the editors,the research finds that the focus of the editors is almost the same,which has little to do with cultural background.But the views they held are again related to cultural characteristics.When analyzing individual cases on the discussion page,the study finds that the strategies used by the editors in the discussion are closely related to their cultural background.Editors in the west tend to use the dominance model to reach agreement in the discussion,while some editors tend to use the compromise model to seek common ground while reserving differences.Research has found that the compromise mode of communication is more conducive to the reconciliation of conflicts.It is easier to persuade others by using euphemisms in communication and appropriately quoting the opinions of other people such as experts.