Tartu
The first session here at CATaC 2006 focusses on cultural diversity. Lori Kendall begins by showing a brief amateur-created online video from Japan set to a Romanian song sung by a Moldovan group; the video contains a broad range of cultural references. Many of the videos use Flash as a media form; this is part of a growing trend - but what cross-cultural references are being portrayed in such videos? Humour theory can be useful here (many jokes are about the pitfalls of intercultural exchange and/or employ cultural stereotypes), as well as Barrie Thorne's studies of 'borderwork' between boys and girls playing at school which maintains gender-cultural boundaries.

Lori now focusses on a video which picks up on the 80s video game Zero Wing that became famous for its iconic phrase 'all your base are belong to us' (mistranslated from the Japanese). Subsequently the phrase appeared throughout popular culture, and gained a certain level of cultural capital: it became a marker of in-group status. (Similar tendencies exist with other poorly translated phrases, and the site Engrish.com has been set up to compile these.) There is a general lack of recognition in the U.S. of the different ways in which English is used in other countries, and this has become a growing problem for example in the context of the immigration system and its checks of English proficiency.

Mistranslation videos have now emerged as a cultural form in their own right, and some of the music videos take foreign-language songs and display soundalike phrases in the video creator's own language which more or less closely mirror the sound of the lyrics - in effect this portrays all of the foreign language as mispronounced English. Further, the imagery used may also reflect stereotypical portrayals of the source culture which may exist in the video creator's own language. But at the same time, some more respectful treatment of the source culture may also exist, and indeed some videos also include lyrics in the source language in their original form. Lori points out that early adopters of new genres set the tone for later adopters. This means that some of the negative uses might serve to reinforce cultural boundaries and stereotypes.

Structures of French University Sites

Marie-Christine Deyrich and Nada Matas-Runquist are the next presenters. They focus on personal and professional CMC users and consumers, and wonder whether such use leads to homogenisation or cultural diversities. They studied French university Websites, and note a previous study which found great similarities in Internet practice in the best universities of the world- France, however, is often absent from such studies as it remains in a medium zone of Internet use in a global comparison.

How does its national culture influence Web content, and does uniformity illustrate globalising tendencies? Such Websites are global objects: national sites in an international context. Should the French Education Ministry centralise the delivery of information for prospective (especially foreign) students through the greation of a uniform Website portal, similar to how this has been done for research through the CNRS Website?

Dimensions of such questions include language and border differences as well as the context for Website development (the developer, their environment, the university administration, budget, etc.), and the wider cultural context in France - which, in a Hofstedeian analysis, shows a great tendency towards uncertainty avoidance, and, in Hall's terms, has a high context rating where information is often given implicitly rather than explicitly. Further, French identities are hybrid, combining regional and national allegiances as well as a history as a colonial power.

French university Websites range from user-friendly sites to those which resemble an IQ test which in itself serves as a tool for identifying prospective students (or rather keeping away those who find themselves unable to navigate these sites). This study remains a work in progress, and needs to be further expanded - for example through a blind test, through further study of the influences of corporate and university culture, through comparing online and offline cultures, and through direct engagement with the Webmasters who have developed these sites.

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