Glocalization in Website Writing: The Case of MNsure and Imagined/Actual Audiences

Abstract Glocalization is an approach that considers audience expectations related to both local and global concerns. As websites become increasingly complex, glocalization requires closer attention to the needs of multiple and layered audiences. This case study uses a glocal perspective to examine one website that represents different audience groups that might wish to purchase health insurance in Minnesota as mandated by the Affordable Care Act (2010). In this case, attention to actual audiences was just as critical as attention to imagined audiences. Usability methods including personas, site visits, and usability testing—in combination with dimensions of difference—are mentioned as ways to anticipate glocal audience needs.

[1]  Huatong Sun,et al.  Cross-Cultural Technology Design: Creating Culture-Sensitive Technology for Local Users (Human-Technology Interaction) , 2012 .

[2]  Doreen Starke-Meyerring,et al.  Globally Networked Learning Environments in Professional Communication: Challenging Normalized Ways of Learning, Teaching, and Knowing , 2010 .

[3]  R. Yin.  Case Study Research: Design and Methods , 1984 .

[4]  Yasser Bhatti.  Reverse Innovation: Create Far from Home, Win Everywhere , 2014 .

[5]  Lisa D. McNair,et al.  Communication in Global Virtual Activity Systems , 2008 .

[6]  R. Robertson.  Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture , 1992 .

[7]  Kirk St. Amant,et al.  Online Education in an Age of Globalization: Foundational Perspectives and Practices for Technical Communication Instructors and Trainers , 2007, Professional Development in Online Teaching and Learning in Technical Communication.

[8]  Doreen Starke-Meyerring,et al.  Meeting the Challenges of Globalization , 2005 .

[9]  Jay David Bolter,et al.  Writing Space: Computers, HyperText, and the Remediation of Print , 2001 .

[10]  R. Robertson,et al.  Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity , 1995 .

[11]  Barry Wellman,et al.  Little Boxes, Glocalization, and Networked Individualism , 2001, Digital Cities.

[12]  Nancy L. Hoft,et al.  International Technical Communication: How to Export Information about High Technology , 1995 .

[13]  Sally Henschel,et al.  Current State of U.S. Undergraduate Degree Programs in Technical and Professional , 2013 .

[14]  Reaching and Enrolling the Uninsured: Early Efforts to Implement the Affordable Care Act , 2013 .

[15]  Sonia Vandepitte,et al.  Growing Grassroots Partnerships: Trans-Atlantic Collaboration between American Instructors and Students of Technical Writing and European Instructors and Students of Translation , 2008 .

[16]  S. Benhabib.  The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era , 2002 .

[17]  Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch.  Users to the rescue: the role of user-generated content (UGC) in the Minnesota affordable care act (ACA) website launch , 2015, SIGDOC.

[18]  D. Starke-Meyerring,et al.  Global Partnerships: Positioning Technical Communication Programs in the Context of Globalization , 2007 .

[19]  Kristina Halvorson,et al.  Content Strategy for the Web , 2009 .

[20]  TyAnna Herrington.  The Global Classroom Project: Troublemaking and Troubleshooting , 2005 .

[21]  Doreen Starke-Meyerring,et al.  Designing globally networked learning environments : visionary partnerships, policies, and pedagogies , 2008 .

[22]  Janice Redish,et al.  User and task analysis for interface design , 1998 .

[23]  James Dubinsky.  When the Global is Local: Building a Local, Global Community through Partnership and Pedagogy , 2008 .

[24]  Carol M. Barnum.  Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set...Test! , 2010 .

[25]  J. Angouri,et al.  This Is Too Formal for Us... , 2008 .

[26]  Kirk St. Amant,et al.  Handbook of Research on Virtual Workplaces and the New Nature of Business Practices Book Review , 2008 .

[27]  Lisa D. McNair,et al.  Teaching Technical Communication in an Era of Distributed Work: A Case Study of Collaboration Between U.S. and Swedish Students , 2007 .

[28]  E. Litt.  Knock, Knock. Who's There? The Imagined Audience , 2012 .

[29]  Rich Rice,et al.  Developing Intercultural Competence through Glocal Activity Theory Using the Connect-Exchange Study Abroad App , 2014 .

[30]  Sonia Vandepitte,et al.  Intercultural Collaboration in the Trans-Atlantic Project: Pedagogical Theories and Practices in Teaching Procedural Instructions across Cultural Contexts , 2008 .

[31]  Anthony Giddens.  Modernity and self-identity , 1991 .

[32]  Thomas N. Smyth,et al.  Global/Local Usability: Locally Contextualized Usability in the Global South , 2011, Global Usability.