  Video-sharing social media like YouTube provide access to diverse cultural
products from all over the world, making it possible to test theories that the
Web facilitates global cultural convergence. Drawing on a daily listing of
YouTube's most popular videos across 58 countries, we investigate the
consumption of popular videos in countries that differ in cultural values,
language, gross domestic product, and Internet penetration rate. Although
online social media facilitate global access to cultural products, we find this
technological capability does not result in universal cultural convergence.
Instead, consumption of popular videos in culturally different countries
appears to be constrained by cultural values. Cross-cultural convergence is
more advanced in cosmopolitan countries with cultural values that favor
individualism and power inequality.
