A Cross-Cultural Genre Analysis of Firm-Generated Advertisements on Twitter and Sina Weibo

To investigate the generic features of firm-generated advertisements (FGAs) in cross-cultural contexts, this study analyzed 327 FGAs by Dell Technologies and the Lenovo Group on Twitter and Sina Weibo. Integrating affordances and multimodality into genre analysis, the study showed that the FGAs were...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of business and technical communication Vol. 36; no. 1; pp. 71 - 104
Main Authors Shi, Xingsong, Wan, Wenjing
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.01.2022
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
affordances
cross-cultural differences
multimodality
firm-generated advertisements
genre analysis
social media
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Summary:To investigate the generic features of firm-generated advertisements (FGAs) in cross-cultural contexts, this study analyzed 327 FGAs by Dell Technologies and the Lenovo Group on Twitter and Sina Weibo. Integrating affordances and multimodality into genre analysis, the study showed that the FGAs were characterized by (a) flexible move structure, (b) persuasive language, (c) visual illustration, and (d) hyperlinks, hashtagging (#), and mentioning (@) functions. The FGAs on Sina Weibo, compared with those on Twitter, tended to use more language play, emojis, and contextual product pictures and show more emphasis on the niche of products, incentives, and celebrity endorsement.
ISSN:1050-6519
1552-4574
DOI:10.1177/10506519211044186