WMB5008 STRATEGIC WEB COMMUNICATION

ASSIGNMENT 2: WEB COMMUNICATION ASSIGNMENT

VIDEO PRESENTATION SUPPORTING DOCUMENT (INDIVIDUAL)
Student Name: Fatema Alminoo
Student ID No: 201200724
1. Application of Uncertainty Avoidance to a Gulf/Bahraini
audience
Bahrains culture has a high uncertainty avoiding, because they generally
put efforts to reduce the possible risks they might have later. Initially, as
proved by Chris Smit that how fast people are officially allowed to drive in
highways, determines how the culture avoids risks. As a result, Bahrains
highest speed is much less than other countries (120k/h), which shows
that they have high uncertainty avoidance to accidents. Moreover,
although alcohol is legally allowed in Bahrain, but people largely avoid
them to avoid the diseases and also the punishments that are stated in
the Quraan. Which shows the high avoidance for risks in the health and
religion field.
Conversely, although it is not legally allowed to smoke in all places, but
according to the World Bank, smoking prevalence in Bahrain reached
34.30 in 2009, which is so high to a small country [see appendix 1].
Consequently, Bahrains culture mostly avoids the risks when they are

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stated in their religion or unusual in their society. In business, Bahrains

most companies give their employees more freedom and independence to
do their work. Which shows that they have few rules and structures in this
term. Consequently, this causes more risks in the future that the company
does not avoid in order to get unique and better results in the end.
2. Application of Collectivism/Individualism to a Gulf/Bahraini
audience
Collectivism mainly means that the citizens life is mostly shared with a
group of people. Therefore, the Bahraini culture is more collectivist and
obviously has very low individualist characteristics.
Firstly, the usual Bahraini family, which is the most significant part of the
Bahraini social structures, clearly shows the values of communitarianism
by preferring to share the same house with their family, aunts, uncles and
grandparents. To add to the previous point, they commonly accommodate
more than two to three generations in one house, which can be obviously
seen in the very old villages, like Manama and Sitra. Besides, almost most
of the Bahraini families have their own specific day in the week to gather
with all the big family in one house, which shows how they tend to gather
and live in groups. Secondly, Bahraini people perfectly show the meaning
of collectivism even when living or studying abroad, typically they rent an
apartment to share it with their colleagues. Because Bahrainis believe that

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living in groups make their lives easier. Thirdly, Bahrainis are so groupminded as they always tend to go out to have fun as groups, mostly travel
with families and friends. This can be noticeably seen in malls, cafs and
restaurants, where there are always groups of people and rarely one
person sitting alone.
However, Bahrainis are less collectivists when it comes to work and
businesses. It can be seen from the numbers of online small businesses on
instagram that are owned and rolled by one person only. This shows that
Bahrainis prefer to work individually instead of working with groups.
Moreover, although they cannot be considered as sociable and outgoing
people, but they extremely care about what other people think of them,
which makes them highly individualists. This can be easily found in social
media when they prefer to have locked/private personal accounts instead
of having public accounts. It proves that they feel more comfortable
having their own personal space. Likewise, Bahrainis financial condition
contributes in making them more individualists, by giving them the ability
to buy and own their separate car instead of using the bus with a group of
people.

3. Application of Universalism/Particularism to a Gulf/Bahraini

audience

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Particularistic societies focus more on relationships and personal respect

than following the rules. Therefore, Bahraini culture is more considered to
be particularistic than universalistic.
To begin with, the most preferable jobs in Bahrain are the government
departments positions, because of the ease of breaking the laws and
responsibilities there. It can be recognizably seen that almost all the
government employees spend their time chatting, eating or doing
personal things while they are supposed to finish their work. This shows
that Bahraini people prefer being particularistic in their work field.
Furthermore, as mentioned before that Bahraini culture is more
collectivistic, which makes people care about each others more. As a
result, they tend to lie or even break the law just to make their family or
friend skip from a problem, or get a benefit. For example, in universities,
the Bahraini students prefer to remain silent whenever they see a
classmate cheating instead of telling the tutor about, although they know
it is prohibited. Moreover, Bahrains culture is mostly affective when it
comes to elderly people, which makes people more emotional and causes
them having many exceptions in the law. For example, if an elderly person
is in the end of a queue, people normally try to make him the first. They
consider it as a respectful manner although it breaks the law.
However, being particularistic can be considered as an advantage
somehow; there are many new businesses founded by young Bahrainis

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who break the rules and produce unique and one-off products, because
they did not follow the instructions of creating a similar product. [See
appendix 2] Similarly, Bahrainis are so Universalists when it comes to
religion rules. For instance, restaurants that sell wine or pork obviously
have few Bahraini customers because it is forbidden in Islam and
unacceptable in the society itself. Likewise, girls with very short dresses
are rarely seen in public; because in Islam there are strict rules when it
comes to costumes and the way people should be dressed publically and
socially.

4. Application of Neutral/Affective to a Gulf/Bahraini audience

Neutral societies do not prefer to obviously show their reactions and
feelings publicly. That is why, Bahraini culture is considered to be a little
bit more affective than neutral, because they always show feelings when
it comes to some sides of their lives, like the family. But at the same time,
they do not say accurately and openly what they feel or think about.
Largely, they feel embarrassed with bodily and physically communicating
in public, which makes it awkward and uneasy for other cultures to catch
the message. For example, shaking hands or hugging between genders is
forbidden in Bahrains culture, which is counted as an essential way to
express feelings in the other cultures. As a result of that, it always causes

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misunderstanding and confusion when commenting with foreigners for the

first time. Additionally, Bahrainis usually feel uncomfortable and
offended when being with people using raised-voice tone and excessive
body language in public. Which is considered as teenagers behaviours in
their culture. Furthermore, in the Bahraini culture, mostly it is not
allowed to publically communicate and interact with the opposite gender.
Their personal emotions are always mysterious and hidden because they
can never freely speak out. Even for married couples, it is abnormal to see
them holding hands in public or in front of people. Although young
generations are somehow changed and practically try to show love in
public, but at the same time they have many limits and boundaries when
it comes to relationships.
Nevertheless, Bahraini culture is affective when it comes to family
issues; they usually let their feelings affect the decision they are making
especially when it is related to the family. For example, when buying cars,
they always consider having a big car that is suitable for the family
members number instead of small cars. It can be apparently seen from
the cars Ads in Bahrain that mostly focus on buying the family car. [See
appendix 3] Also, they highly sympathize with humanitarian issues, such
as famine, poverty and serious diseases. As a proof, many Bahrainis
contribute in any event that supports any kind of serious diseases, such as

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Think Pink campaigns. [See appendix 4, 5] This makes Bahraini culture

affective and emotional about other peoples pain and soreness.

5. Provide three relevant suggestions about localising the content

of Papa Johns UAE website to make it more suitable to a
Gulf/Bahraini audience from a cultural perspective.
Suggestion One:
Images reflect several indirect cultural messages inside them. Bahrain is a
high collectivistic culture that is more affective when it comes to the
family. Therefore, Papa Johns should have taken an advantage of it by
using photos that contain the family members, or a group of
people. To be more specific, including pictures of Papa johns only is not
suitable to what the culture looks optimistically upon [See appendix 6]. A
photo of him individually will only be acceptable in a high individualistic
culture. But for a high collectivistic culture it is preferable to put Papa
johns sitting with staff instead.
Furthermore, the slide show (on the homepage) should have had more
photos of Papa Johns family offers instead of pizzas kinds that can be
simply placed in the menu. Because as mentioned before, Bahraini culture
is more collectivistic and always prefer to go out with the family, and

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friends. So what they will be looking for is meals for groups not individuals.
Also, Localize the meals and marketing message: they should have
taken an advantage of the gathering day all Bahraini families have. For
example, they could offer meals for a huge number of people with a
cheap price for one day. This undoubtedly makes audience feel home
and pleased.
Suggestion Two:
Language: It is not wise to use the phrase "Nobody does what Papa
Johns does!" in the headline of the homepage, which is delivered to an
extremely collectivist culture [See appendix 7]. They could change the
headlines on the homepage to more family-related ones since most
of their target audience are families. Such as bring your family and have
a delicious Pizza! to catch their attention.
Besides, they should have studied the style of the language that is used in
the Bahraini culture more. Since the audiences are mostly informal and
youth and from an affective culture, so the language should have been
relaxed and easy to read. Moreover, Bahrains culture is not universalistic;
so they do not usually rely on rich-written and detailed information to
totally understand what the Pizza is made of. Yet, it is a culture that mostly
trusts pictures so they need short and brief text that briefly describes the
Pizza and more photos of it.
The homepage is the first thing the viewer sees when opening the

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website. Therefore, having it with a different language than the one the
culture is used to, might absolutely lead to confusion. The content of the
homepage should be in Arabic to be more understandable to the
Bahraini culture. Also, the choice to change language is not available.
Which is a disadvantage for a culture like the Bahraini culture, where there
are many foreigners with different languages. Papa Johns should have
added an option to change the language depending on the
viewers cultures language.
Suggestion Three:
Navigation: It is important to consider what information should be
necessarily carried from the original site to the localised one. Not all
information in the original site should automatically be translated or
copied and pasted. In the West countries, Bahrain as part of them, how the
website and its navigation bar is presented should not be as it is normally
done. The audiences of Bahrains culture read from right to left since their
first language is Arabic. So for a more acceptable view of the website, the
navigation bar and the content should be presented firstly from right to
left.
Furthermore, gulf countries are more particularistic which makes them
hate rules. The navigation and call to action buttons are written in a
structured and tough language [See appendix 8]. Therefore, they have to
change the language to a less structured one. For example, Your

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order instead of Order now.

Appendixes
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Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

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Appendix 4

Appendix 5

Appendix 6

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Appendix 7

Appendix 8

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References
1. Clearlycultural.com, (2010). Uncertainty Avoidance | Clearly
Cultural. [online] Available at: http://www.clearlycultural.com/geerthofstede-cultural-dimensions/uncertainty-avoidance-index/
[Accessed 29 Nov. 2014].
2. Knowmecct.oncampus.de, (2014). Neutral vs affective KNOWMECCT. [online] Available at:
http://knowmecct.oncampus.de/loop/Neutral_vs_affective [Accessed
29 Nov. 2014].

3. Kwintessential.co.uk, (2014). Culture and Website Localization |

articles | Translation. [online] Available at:
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/translation/articles/culture-websitelocalization.html [Accessed 29 Nov. 2014].
4. Smit, C. (2014). Examples of Uncertainty Avoidance - Culture

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Matters. [online] Culturematters.com. Available at:

http://culturematters.com/examples-of-uncertainty-avoidance/
[Accessed 29 Nov. 2014].

5. The Objective Standard, (2014). Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our

Future, Our Choice - The Objective Standard. [online] Available at:
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2012spring/individualism-collectivism/ [Accessed 29 Nov. 2014].
6. Thinkpinkbahrain.com, (2014). Think Pink Bahrain, Breast Cancer
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http://www.thinkpinkbahrain.com/news.php?id=41 [Accessed 29
Nov. 2014].

7. Tlu.ee, (2014). Uncertainty Avoidance. [online] Available at:

http://www.tlu.ee/~sirvir/IKM/Leadership
%20Dimensions/uncertainty_avoidance.html [Accessed 29 Nov.
2014].
8. Tradingeconomics.com, (2014). Smoking prevalence - males (% of
adults) in Bahrain. [online] Available at:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/bahrain/smoking-prevalencemales-percent-of-adults-wb-data.html [Accessed 29 Nov. 2014].
9. via-web.de International Business Cultures, (2014). VI. Universalism

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versus particularism. [online] Available at: http://www.viaweb.de/universalism-versus-particularism/ [Accessed 29 Nov. 2014].

10. Web.stanford.edu, (2014). CAREER PLANNING. [online] Available at:

http://web.stanford.edu/group/scie/Career/Wisdom/univ_par.htm
[Accessed 29 Nov. 2014].