Abstract

Public service advertisements originated in United States in 1940s to support World War Two. At that time, Ad Council claimed that public service advertisements aimed to publicize right social notions and healthy life style. Nowadays, PSAs still hold this principle. Now, social problems emerge one after another. For example, China which is the largest developing country of this world and United States which is the most developed country on earth both face lots of social problems such as environmental pollution, moral corruption and others which threaten the stability of the society. Both countries try to use the public service advertisements to solve the problems. However, although Chinese and American public service advertisements share lots of same themes, they take different executions (how themes are communicated) to present them. After reading lots of relative materials, it is found that Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck’s value orientation, Hall’s high and low context and Hosftede’s value dimensions are frequently applied in analyzing the difference between cultures. Hence, the thesis will be based on Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck’s time orientation, Hall’s high and low context and Hoftede’s individualism and collectivism.Then, 50 television public service advertisements are collected for study from the largest website of China and United States. After careful analysis of the different executions of the advertisements, it is found that collectivism, past orientation and high context are more frequently observed in China’s public service advertisements, and individualism, present orientation and low context are more often observed in America’s public service advertisements.

Key words: time orientation, high/low context, collectivism/individualism, Sino-US public service advertisements, execution
 

摘        要

公益广告于19世纪40年代诞生于美国用以支持二战需要。后来，战时广告协会表示公益广告应该为公共生活服务以倡导正确的社会观念以及健康的生活方式。直到今日，其主要目标依旧未曾改变。如今社会问题层出不穷. 例如，中国和美国，分别为当今最大的发展中国家和发达国家，都面临着许多威胁社会稳定的问题，如：环境污染，道德败坏等等。两国都致力于通过公益广告的正面宣传能够阻止问题的蔓延并更好地解决这些问题。虽然中美公益广告的许多主题一致，然而其表现手法（即如何传播主题的方式）却并不相同。在参考大量相关材料后发现克拉克洪-斯托特伯克的价值取向理论，霍尔的高低语境以及霍夫斯塔德的文化维度经常被应用于分析文化差异，因此本文选择克拉克洪-斯托特伯克的时间取向，霍尔的高低语境以及霍夫斯塔德的个人主义/集体主义作为理论基础。接下来从两国最大的网站一共选取了50部电视公益广告并对其采用的不同表现手法进行归纳统计最后发现中国公益广告更多反映了集体主义，过去时间取向和高语境，而美国则刚好相反，更多地反应了个人主义，现在时间取向和低语境。

关键词：时间取向, 高低语境, 个人主义/集体主义, 中美电视公益广告, 表现手法