CMC on Group Collaboration: The Process and Barriers Between Two Cultures

Abstract

In an increasingly online world, the ability to use Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and communicate effectively with people from other cultures are key to success. The purpose of this study is to examine how young generation with different cultural background are doing the communication process (specifically in creating messages, choosing the communication device and choosing the time mode) using CMC medium, and how they are dealing with the possible barriers that could hinder the collaboration effectiveness. We refer the cultural differences on cultural dimensions by Hofstede. This research uses qualitative with a case-study method and analyzed multiple sources of evidence such as recorded correspondence, logbook, focus group discussions, direct observation and experts’ interview for data collection. Participants are 30 Journalism students from Pelita Harapan University (UPH) Indonesia and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Australia who join a collaboration project from October – November 2018. This study shows that Individualism, Masculinity and Power Distance cultural dimensions really affect how they communicate to each other. The students use mostly asynchronous communication such as chat text, email and google doc for their communication tools because the available technologies especially internet connections did not yet support this group collaboration using CMC optimally. This project cannot be finalized without CMC however some barriers needed to be overcome to increase the effectiveness of future collaboration.