High Context Culture Vs Low Context Culture

Many aspects of cultural behavior are not made explicit because most members know what to do and what to think from years of interaction with each other.

In low context cultures such as those found in the u s. The difference between a low context and a high context culture lies in the mode of communication that takes place at the individual dialogue level. The mass of information is vested in the explicit code message. Most of the information is either in the physical context or initialized in the person.

Meanwhile low culture refers to works of art that are more associated with the masses non elites. High context refers to societies or groups where people have close connections over a long period of time. Although it can be a complex characteristic whether a culture is high context or low context it can determine many other. Such that england would be higher context than denmark while being lower context than japan.

High and low context should be seen as a continuum e g. Association relationships are stable build up slowly and are based on mutual trust. In low context cultures people have to say or write more because there is little shared meaning of message in communication. Low context refers to societies where people tend to have many connections but of shorter duration or for some specific reason.

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Low context cultures also want these communications to revolve around basic questions like. Your family is probably an example of a high context environment. Cultures typically can t be organized strictly into either high or low context. High and low here is another concept that will help you pull together a lot of the material you have read so far about culture.

When it comes to emails texts and online messaging low context cultures use it to fire off quick frequent messages. In high context cultures communication is largely implicit meaning that context and relationships are more important than the actual words and therefore very few words are necessary. So trashy but so good amirite. 61 defined high context cultures as a culture where the meaning of message lies in physical environment or its already shared by people thus people do not need to say or write it more.

It may be more widely known as popular culture and it is supposedly the complete anti thesis of high culture. Most cultures fall between the extremes on the spectrum and can share characteristics of both high and low context traits to varying degrees. Data was gathered in india ireland thailand and the united states where the results confirm that high context nations india and thailand prefer the avoiding and obliging conflict styles more than low context nations ireland and the united states whereas low context nations prefer the uncompromising and dominating communication style more than high context nations. It is called high context and low context and was created by the same anthropologist who developed the concepts of polychronic and monochronic time.