Introduction

This chapter presents a general introduction of the book with regard to its practical background, research background, research aims, objectives and questions as well as its organization. The practical background pinpoints the significance of a cross-cultural study of corporate identity construction by Chinese and American airlines on social media. The research background follows to clarify the rationale for investigating corporate identity construction on social media using a cross-cultural multimodal approach. Driven by the current practical and research needs, this chapter identifies the research aims and thereby proposes the specific research objectives and questions. Afterwards the organization and main content of the eight chapters in this book are outlined sequentially.