A cross-cultural perspective on televised political advertising during the presidential election between the US and South Korea: 1992–2012

Our study was motivated by the fact that, despite the increasing pervasiveness of political advertising in the political process of many democracies, little empirical research has been conducted to unveil common patterns or crucial differences of political spots across cultural boundaries. Our study thus provided one opportunity to gain better understanding and insights into how media phenomena are related to cultural orientation by comparing and contrasting the content of political spots across the United States and South Korea. In particular, this study analyzed verbal components of political spots in both US and Korean presidential elections over the past 20 years. To the extent that clear differences exist between American and Korean cultural patterns, political spots, which are a conspicuous indicator of cultural values, appear to manifest these differences quite strongly. The findings of this study provide evidence that political advertising primarily reflects the uniqueness of indigenous cultures.     

A Functional Analysis of the 2000 Taiwanese and US Presidential Spots

This study analyzes the 2000 presidential television advertisements in Taiwan and the United States. Contrary to the common cultural assumption that Asian messages are more positive than those in the US, there is no significant difference of acclaims (positive utterances) and attacks (negative utterances) between the two countries. It appears that the cultural influence on utterance functions was overridden by situational factors in campaign communication. Nevertheless, Taiwanese spots differ from those in the US in three aspects, emphasizing character over policy, addressing past deeds more frequently than future plans, and focusing on leadership abilities more often than the US counterparts. Overall, this comparative analysis suggests a character-centered culture of political communication in Taiwan, which is different from the common emphasis of policy over character in Western political advertisements.     

Contractualism,Committalism, and Covenantalism: A Worldview Dimensional Analysis of Human Relating

Throughout the literature much of the research on political campaign debates has focused on presidential debates and has largely ignored non‐presidential debates, particularly those featuring candidates competing in mixed‐gender races. The purpose of this study is to draw attention to these non‐presidential debates and particularly those in which gender may play a pivotal role. Through our analysis of four debates—two gubernatorial and two U.S. Senate debates—we advance the notion of debatestyle as a useful analytic scheme to examine the verbal content of female and male candidate debate dialogue. While few differences in female and male debatestyles ultimately emerged, results of the current study indicate that female and male political candidates, when engaged in debate, adopt a strategy of gendered adaptiveness that offers important contributions to both research on political debates as well as research on gender and politics.     

Americanization of Korean political advertising

This study explores televised political ads in the 1992 presidential election in the US and Korea to determine whether Korean political advertising follows American campaign styles—the findings are that it does. More specifically, the results demonstrated few differences between the two groups. However, some deep‐seated Korean cultural values still remain distinct in terms of negative advertising use and the category of ethical appeals. The conclusion is that the dominance of American campaign styles may be present in a global context beyond Western societies.     

When style obscures substance: Visual attention to display appropriateness in the 2012 presidential debates

As with the first televised debates in 1960, the 2012 US presidential debates accentuated the importance of nonverbal behavior in political competition, with President Obama receiving widespread criticism for his disengaged and arguably inappropriate communication style in the first debate. To investigate the perceptual impact of such nonverbal expectancy violations, this study first employs an experimental design to examine the consequence of inappropriate leader displays, operationalized as nonverbal behaviors that are incongruent with the rhetorical setting. Theoretical explanations about the evaluative consequences of inappropriate leader displays are described in light of expectancy violations theory. Results of a repeated measures eye-tracking experiment find support for the prediction that inappropriate facial expressions increase visual attention on the source of violation, prompt critical scrutiny, and elicit negative evaluations. These findings are further explored with qualitative analysis of focus group responses to key moments from the first and third presidential debates. The discussion considers the broader implications of nonverbal communication in politics and how expressive leader displays serve as meaningful cues for citizens when making sense of televised political encounters.     

Determinants of Defense in Presidential Debates

This study investigates the relationship between attacks and defenses in political debates. Being the target of an attack provides a candidate with opportunity and motivation to defend; hence, the frequency of attacks directed toward a candidate should be directly related to the number of defenses produced by that candidate. This study employs four data sets to test this expectation: 23 U.S. general presidential debates, 59 U.S. presidential primary debates, 12 U.S. Senate debates, and 10 non-U.S. debates (France, Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine). Statistical analysis confirms that there is a significant positive relationship between number of attacks aimed at a candidate and the number of defenses employed by that candidate in all four samples of political campaign debates. Arguably, this form of direct clash between candidates could be particularly beneficial to voters as it provides a deeper understanding of the pros and cons of governmental policy and related issues.     

Looking Presidential: A Comparison of Newspaper Photographs of Candidates in the United States and Taiwan

News coverage of elections is a popular topic in mass and political communication research. Studies of this tradition usually focus on news articles and neglect another important element of news content: news photographs. In this study, newspaper photographs of presidential candidates in the United States and Taiwan were compared. Generally, US candidates were more likely to be portrayed as a beloved leader, at leisure, from the side or back, looking determined, as a leader and follower, standing or walking, and with cheering crowds. Candidates in Taiwan were more likely to be depicted in a ‘glad-to-see-you’ pose, with a camera angle looking down, with no expression, as an equal to others in the same photograph, and with inattentive people. How political and cultural differences between these two countries may have contributed to such variations was also discussed in this study.     

Books received

This study examined issue learning outcomes in three intra‐party political debates during the 1984 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The results indicated that intra‐party political debates produce significant viewer learning (1) about the issue positions of each participating candidate, (2) about most issues, and (3) among all categories of viewers. In addition, the study found that intra‐party political debates produce distinct outcomes, including: variation in learning between debates about candidate positions on particular issues; significant increases in learning about the positions of the Democratic candidates on the part of Democratic, Republican, and nonaffiliated viewers; and a negative effect on viewer knowledge about nonparticipating incumbent Ronald Reagan's positions on the issues.     

FROM FEAR OF TELEVISION TO FEAR FOR TELEVISION

New media technologies are often met with political and public ambivalence, as they are perceived to threaten established activities, values and institutions, as well as bring progress and improve political, cultural and social life. Taking the Norwegian history of television as an empirical case study, this article relates to an international research agenda focusing on the cultural political debates in the early phases of broadcast media. The article is structured according to five key conjunctures where significant new media and technologies were introduced with corresponding political debates: the introduction of television (1940s–1950s), of colour television (1960s–1970s), of satellite, cable and commercial television (1980s), of digital distribution (1990s–2000s) and the expansion of television to new platforms (2000s). The article addresses the key arguments and dividing lines in these political debates, as well as the change in the perception of television when the medium is no longer new, but has become an integrated part of people's everyday life.     

Issue competition and presidential debates in multiparty systems: evidence from the 2002, 2007, and 2012 Korean presidential elections

Which issues do political parties emphasize in campaigns? Selecting the issues to emphasize in campaigns is treated with the same importance as policy positioning. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to understanding parties’ strategies of issue competition in presidential elections under multiparty systems. By analyzing statements of presidential candidates in the 2002, 2007, and 2012 Korean presidential debates, we find that presidential candidates use their issue emphasis strategies differently in presidential elections according to party size and ideological relationships with other parties. Specifically, a small party’s candidates have been more likely than mainstream parties’ candidates to pursue their issue ownership advantage. In addition, a mainstream party’s candidates have emphasized the issues of a small party more than those of his own party when the two parties have had a similar ideological foundation, whereas, when there were no such ideological similarities, a mainstream party’s candidate has only focused on issues of the mainstream party. Our results imply that the political communication used by political parties and candidates is conditioned not only by political contexts such as electoral systems or party systems but also by the size and ideology of parties.     

A meta-analysis of the effects of viewing U.S. presidential debates

Televised debates are now an expected component of the American presidential election campaign. A meta-analysis was used to cumulate the research on the effects of watching presidential debates. General campaign debates increase issue knowledge and issue salience (the number of issues a voter uses to evaluate candidates) and can change preference for candidates' issue stands. Debates can have an agenda-setting effect. Debates can alter perceptions of the candidates' personality, but they do not exert a significant effect on perceptions of the candidates' competence (leadership ability). Debates can affect vote preference. Primary debates increase issue knowledge, influence perceptions of candidates' character, and can alter voter preferences (the effect sizes for these variables are larger in primary than general debates). The effect sizes for the dependent variables with significant effects were heterogeneous (except for effects of debates other than the first on vote preference). No support was found for several possible moderator variables on issue knowledge, character perceptions, candidate competence, and vote preference: nature of subject pool (students, nonstudents), study design (pretest/posttest, viewers/nonviewers), number of days between debate and election, or data collection method (public opinion poll or experimenter data). The first debate in a series had a larger effect on vote preference than other debates, but was not a moderator for other dependent variables. The possibility that other moderator variables are at work cannot be rejected.     

美国总统大选中的网络媒体影响力研究

本文从传播学角度,分析了奥巴马赢得2008年美国总统大选中的关键要素,阐释了网络媒体如何第一次彻底地充当了美国大选中的政治工具,在开展竞选宣传、组织支持者,拉选票、募集资金、跟踪和制造舆论、劝服选民等竞选活动中产生的巨大影响力.     

Commodity,Culture, Common Sense: Media Research and Paradigm Dialogue

Recent debates between scholars representing political economy and cultural studies are reminiscent of exchanges between administrative and critical researchers in the 1970s and 1980s that produced no clearly opposing valuations undergirding their respective paradigms. Little real dialogue seems likely from the current debates between cultural studies and political economy, particularly as represented in the "colloquy" between them published in Critical Studies in Mass Communication. A close reading of that colloquy reveals stereotypes at work, which contrasts sharply with scholarship applying more integrative approaches, particularly the work applying critical research and theorizing on media artifacts, media institutions, and media audiences.     

Beyond learning and persona: extending the scope of presidential debate effects

Research on the effects of watching presidential debates tends to show that these messages can foster learning about the candidates' issue positions and influence voters' impressions of the candidates. This study uses a pretest/posttest design to assess more subtle effects of watching a 2000 presidential debate on attitudes and vote intention. Leadership and overall policy stance became more important factors in vote choice after watching the debate. Specific groups of issues also became more important in vote choice. Viewers reacted to the candidates differentially: Bush enhanced perceptions of his character (but not of his policy positions), while Gore improved perceptions of his policy positions (but not of his character). The data also reveal that the debates increased the confidence of vote choices for those who did not change their preferred candidate over the course of this study (which could make them more likely to vote on election day and/or less likely to change their vote choice). This study demonstrates a variety of potentially important effects of watching presidential debates.     

The News Norms and Values of Presidential Debate Agendas: An Analysis of Format and Moderator Influence on Question Content

Mediated debates provide audiences with invaluable campaign information, and the public does in fact learn from debate exposure. Debates have undergone format changes over the years, but their ability to attract a mass audience remains constant. The way news media cover U.S. presidential elections has also evolved; increasing commercial pressures drive heightened emphasis on infotainment, soft news, and electoral strategy—often at the expense of hard news and policy content. Yet little is known about the content of agendas that news professionals set in presidential debates. Through a quantitative content analysis, this study examines 20 years of general election debate questions to determine whether the commercial news values common in today's campaign coverage also influence debate agendas. The findings presented herein suggest not only the presence of these news values in debate agendas but that format and moderator also wield a degree of influence over the content of debate questions.     

Dual-Screening the Candidate Image during Presidential Debates: The Moderating Role of Twitter and Need to Evaluate for the Effects on Candidate Perceptions

This study investigates the impact of dual-screening on audiences’ perceptions of presidential candidates during the 2016 electoral campaign. The results suggest that dual-screening can exert a significant moderation role, weakening the direct effects of the televised debates on candidate perceptions. The results also imply that the role of dual-screening might be dependent on the audience’s need-to-evaluate characteristic. These findings address the pressing societal questions on ways that digital disruption is impacting the role of traditional media in political campaigns and our theoretical understanding of this process.     

A Functional Analysis of the 2002 Korean Presidential Debates

This study applied the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to the 2002 Korean presidential debates. These messages stressed acclaims (positive statements) more than attacks; defenses were the least common function. Policy (issues) occurred more frequently than character (image). General goals and ideals were used more to acclaim than attack. The incumbent party candidate acclaimed more and attacked less than challenger party candidates (and acclaimed more and attacked less on past deeds in particular). The most common form of defense was simple denial. These results were contrasted with the most recent American presidential debates to reveal similarities and differences between presidential debates in these two cultures.     

PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL, PARTISANSHIP AND THE ECONOMY: EVIDENCE FROM THE 1984 CONTINUOUS MONITORING SURVEY IN THE US

This paper examines several key debates in the literature onthe effects of economic performance on political support, usingthe Continuous Monitoring Survey of the 1984 CPS American nationalelection study. Box-Jenkins time-series analyses show that theelectorate operates in terms of a reward-punishment model whichis asymmetrical and sociotropic in its effects. In the modelsdeveloped party identification and economic evaluations Granger–causepresidential approval, the effects of the former being strongerthan those of the latter. Partisanship and economic evaluationsform two independent streams of influence on presidential approval,casting doubt on some revisionist interpretations in the votingliterature, i.e., that party identification is simply a runningtally of voters' judgments about party performance on economicand other issues. In addition, the results suggest that popularityfunctions which omit party identification are theoreticallymisspecified.