CHAPTER V INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE WEB The Web may be considered to be worldwide in its coverage, but it probably does not achieve this in its delivery of content, yet. Surveys suggest that most of the users are English speakers, as are the majority of Web pages (e.g., GVU's 10th WWW user survey, 1998). Also, it appears that virtual communities on the Internet provide their own culture, creating their own set of rules and codes of interacting with each other (Rheingold 1993; Porter 1997). However, it is not clear, yet, if the Internet culture transcends or subsumes national, regional, or local cultures. As stated in a Web column, "[t]he intersection of culture of the Internet with cultures of nations is an area ripe for research" (Culture, cognition and instructional design, 1998). Collis & Remmers (1997) point out that the Web makes it possible to interact and communicate across cultures by using transcultural technology while respecting local cultural setting. They state that two categories of Web sites exist with respect to international use. Web sites are either designed to serve a single cultural setting, but are frequently visited by people from other cultural contexts, or they are designed specifically for a diversity of cultures, thus allowing cross-cultural communication and international use. As Wild, Henderson, Burn, Stoney & Oliver (as cited in Culture, cognition and instructional design, 1998) argue in a presentation at the WebNet '97 conference of the Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education (AACE), [i]nstructional design for Web-based learning systems cannot, and does not, exist outside of a consideration of cultural influences—both the cultural 293 influences operating on the authors and instructional designers of Web-based learning materials, and similarly, those influences that impact on the interpretation of such materials by learners. In light of these issues in the instructional design of Web site for international use, Collis & Remmers (1997) suggest to pay attention to the following criteria: cross-cultural differences in interaction and communication; choice of language; selection of content material and purpose with respect to local needs and/or more “cultural neutral” needs; and cultural sensitivity about the design of material for visualization. Much of the discussion of internationalization and localization of software applications is focused on the distribution of these products to a global market. Thus, the internationalization and localization of software products becomes part of an organization’s global marketing strategy. For instance, in its recent print advertisement campaign under the general title “Now it gets interesting,” Accenture Ltd.—an international provider of management and technology consulting services and solutions—included one advertisement in this campaig, which indicates that Chinese would become the number one language on the Web by the year 2007 (Chinese to become #1, 2001; see also the German weekly Die Zeit, 13, March 22, 2001, p. 36; Die Zeit, 15, April 5, 2001, p. 19). Accenture foresees e-business opportunities for its clients in the growing market of China, which can also be enhanced by the fact that non-Western characters like Chinese can now be displayed more easily in Web browsers and can even be used in Internet addresses 294 (e.g., Asendorpf, 2001)—see also the world language usage diagram in Figure16 on page296.1 However, at of the time of this writing, a global standard for domain names still does not exist. For instance, Chinese domain names would still have to be transcribed into the Latin alphabet in order to be processed properly, which requires an additional software program. In this section we provide an overview of the concept of internationalization and localization from a business and also from a technical perspective, and how this affects the Web and its use in education. We describe ways of how existing Web technologies can be utilized to develop Web sites for international use. In addition, we discuss internationalization in the context of user interface design, Web design, and the development of instructional technology. 1. The business context of internationalization and localization In the business management literature (e.g., Douglas & Craig, 1995), the global marketing evolution or internationalization of business activities is divided into different phases. During the pre-international phase decisions are made on the issue of whether to enter the global market and how to conduct this market entry. During the first phase, a company makes an initial entry into the international market based on a specific country choice, entry mode, as well as timing and 1. In fact, in 1999 there were 867,200,000 first language speakers of Chinese and a total of 1,052,000,000 Chinese speakers (including second language users), compared to Spanish with 358,000,000 first language speakers and a total of 417,000,000 Spanish speakers (including second language users), Hindi with 366,000,000 and a total of 487,000,000 Hindi speakers (including second language users) as well as English with 341,000,000 first speakers and a total of 508,000,000 English speakers (including second language users) (Grimes & Grimes, 2000). 295 Figure 16: World languages use (adapted and redrawn from Grimes & Grimes, 2000; Harris & McCormack, 2000, p. 18) 296 sequencing of the entry. In the second phase of internationalization, the company may expand in the local markets and establish its business. Finally, in the third phase global rationalization has been reached. The company has now adopted a global orientation which replaces the previous multidomestic orientation. The ultimate goal of a global strategy should be to achieve optimal integration and rationalization of operations and decision systems on a global scale, as markets are becoming more integrated and interlinked worldwide. With regards to marketing on a worldwide scale, Usunier (1996) points out that it is as much about localization as it is about globalization. It aims to customize product and marketing strategies to customer needs to diversified distribution channels and to local media and communication styles, within the framework of a global strategy. Intercultural marketing tries to balance cross-national differences, in so far as they require mandatory adaptation, and cross-national commonalities which should be exploited in the building of size and experience effects. (p. 212) Usunier (1996, p. 192-193) further states that culture-related differences related to consumer-behavior and marketing environments may diminish progressively in the long term. However, language-related differences will remain. Thus, in adopting an intercutlural marketing strategy, local knowledge needs to be generated within the realm of the organizational discourse. Such a marketing strategy will eventually be more respectful to local cultures. It will attempt to serve both national as well as transnational market segments. Further, Usunier (1996, p. 242-244) explains that a central issue in an international marketing strategy is the decision whether to adapt products for foreign markets after the consumer, the national markets, and their particular characteristics have been surveyed, or to standardize products, which is a simplified 297 strategy following experience effects and cost reduction. The decision is based on a three layer model of attributes. A product has physical attributes that can easily be standardized. Service attributes may vary depending on their cultural context and are difficult to standardize. Finally, symbolic attributes, which are the interpretive elements of the physical attributes, represent a challenge in arriving at a balanced approach to select the appropriate symbolic meanings of the product that takes into consideration exotic, ethnic and national appeals. According to Usunier (1996, p. 404-406), the management process for marketing communication consists of six basic steps. First, the communication problem needs to be isolated. Second, the target audience has to be identified. Third, the marketing communication objective needs to be identified including decisions about influencing the audience at either the attitudinal or the behavioral level. Fourth, the advertising themes and creative strategy is selected. Fifth, a media plan is established. Finally, the advertising campaign is implemented and monitored. Internationalization has the strongest impact on the target audience and the media, when these steps incorporate local factors. Other steps that are influenced by culture include the creative strategy and media planning implemented in such a campaign. Defining a communication problem or objective, or testing the effectiveness of the campaign are less influenced by cultural elements and call for a similar approach in each country, although the solution may be different. Bolton (1994, p. 218-219) suggests a methodological framework for intercultural management consulting that helps to establish possible synergies, which occur when the result of (intercultural) interactions is larger than the sum of 298 the (intracultural) effects of the individual components. According to his framework, the first step is to determine if the actors of the intercultural encounter are known, which implies the creation of a user profile that takes into account the different countries the users might come from as well as regional differences within countries. If this is not the case, then detailed information about