This Master’s thesis offers insight into the world of acculturation strategies of sojourner bloggers from the United States living in capital cities in both Western Europe and East Asia. Blogs have become a popular online resource for people residing abroad. These blogs function as a source of information as well as a site of community building within the expat and sojourner communities. However, these blogs have not been researched in the context of acculturation. The majority of previous research regarding acculturation has been done using surveys, but as blogs are becoming important to these communities it is necessary to look at how these blogs portray acculturation strategies. Hence, this thesis examines how these acculturation strategies are portrayed in these sojourner blogs with particular attention paid to the differences between those sojourners living in Western Europe and East Asia. In order to examine this a qualitative content analysis was conducted. A brief quantitative content analysis was also performed to assess if there was a statistically significant difference in the portrayals by region. The study showed a variety of different ways in which acculturation was portrayed, with the most common being descriptions of food, daily life, and language. This analysis also revealed some categories for understanding acculturation that had not been found using survey research such as host culture awareness, entertainment, and advice. The largest differences between the regions were in general less reporting of interaction with the host culture in East Asia. Additionally, those sojourners from the United States living in East Asia expressed feeling othered by their host culture, which was not reported by those residing in Western Europe. The quantitative analysis showed statistically significant differences in contact and participation between those bloggers located in Western Europe and East Asia but no difference in cultural maintenance. The results of this study show promise in further exploring blogs in the field of acculturation and cross-cultural studies.

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J. Hofhuis, J. Jansz
hdl.handle.net/2105/39706
Media, Culture & Society
Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication

S.N. Balaz. (2017, October 9). Blogging about Acculturation. Media, Culture & Society. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2105/39706