Videostyles of Televised Presidential Debates in the U.S. and Korea Hyoungkoo Khang, Ph. D Lecturer Hankuk University of Foreign Studies . INTRODUTION Chaffee (1975) conceived of the role of communication in the political process as political communication, which involves the exchange of symbols and messages among political actors and institutions, the general public, and the news media (McLeod, Kosicki, & McLeod, 2002). We can assume that political communication will be more accelerated and intensify during political campaigning because political campaigns are periods of time during which candidates for public office transmit information to potential voters via mass media in an attempt to create support for their candidacies and try to convince voters that they should vote in a particular way on election day. 1
Transcript
Videostyles of Televised Presidential Debates in the U.S. and Korea
Hyoungkoo Khang, Ph. D
Lecturer
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
INTRODUTION
Chaffee (1975) conceived of the role of communication in the political process as
political communication, which involves the exchange of symbols and messages among
political actors and institutions, the general public, and the news media (McLeod,
Kosicki, & McLeod, 2002). We can assume that political communication will be more
accelerated and intensify during political campaigning because political campaigns are
periods of time during which candidates for public office transmit information to
potential voters via mass media in an attempt to create support for their candidacies and
try to convince voters that they should vote in a particular way on election day.
Echoing the criticism that television news’s “horse race” coverage of political
campaigns, in which they focus on who is winning rather than on the issues with
increasingly shorter sound bites, candidates have turned to another form of political
communication, candidate debates, to convey their messages and images to the voters
(Just, Crigler, & Wallach, 1990). Indeed, studies have shown that political debates are
more effective than network news in providing issue information to voters. Viewers also
can learn information about candidates (including their names, parties, images, and
positions on issues) from candidate debates.
After the historic first presidential debates between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960
and the 1976 debates between Ford and Carter, debates have become one of the most
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significant events in political campaigning (Chaffee, 1979). Debates can reach large
audiences (Pfau, 2003), and attract the greatest media coverage of any single campaign
event (Kaid, McKinney, & Tedesco, 2000). Debates also provide voters the most
convenient and direct access to the candidates, and offer a capsule summary of campaign
issues (Carlin, 1992). Presidential debates, thus, generate the greatest amount of public
interest and more citizen-to-citizen discussion than any other single campaign event
(Patterson, 2002).
While political candidate debates have played a dominant role in U.S. elections for
decades, “American-style” political debates have gained significance in the political
processes of other democracies (McKinney & Carlin, 2004). Several comparative studies
show that American campaign styles have been dominant in other countries, although
concurrently, different parameters of culture, political systems, and media systems can
promote or constrain symbols and messages exchanged between political candidates and
voters via political debates (Kaid & Holtz-Bacha, 1995).
Indeed, there have been few studies that compare and contrast political debates
across various cultural boundaries to unveil common patterns and highlight crucial
differences. For this study, the researcher utilized videostyles (Kaid & Johnston, 2001) to
explore similarities and differences in presidential debates between the two countries.
The purpose of this study is, therefore, to present an alternative way of looking at
communication by analyzing and categorizing cultural assumptions as they are found in
American culture in comparison and contrast with those in the Korean counterpart.
LITERATURE REVIEW
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Political Campaign Debates
Some scholars have suggested that presidential debates offer viewers the chance to
see the major candidates in a face-to-face confrontation while addressing the same topics
(Benoit & Wells, 1996; Hellweg et al., 1992). Jamieson (1987) explained that “as
messages running an hour or longer, debates offer a level of contact with candidates
clearly unmatched in spot ads and news segments” (p. 28). Kraus (2000) also argued that
presidential debates “serve the majority of the electorate better than any candidates’
personality and their positions on the issues” (p. 5).
Many studies have addressed the question of “Do debates matter?” since general
election televised presidential debates commenced in 1960. According to Bystrom,
Roper, Gobets, Massey, and Beall (1991), presidential debate research has focused on
three main areas: (1) the effects of decided versus undecided voters; (2) the effects of
viewer’s perceptions on candidates’ issues and images; (3) the effects of preexisting
candidate preferences and party affiliation, especially concerning “who won” the debate
in the war of persuasive attack and defense.
Pfau (2002) argued that presidential debates conducted during the general election
enhance viewer knowledge of the candidates and their issue positions. Holbrook (1996)
reported that presidential debates influence candidate evaluations and voting intentions.
His results demonstrated that receivers’ evaluations of candidate performance in TV
debates significantly influence post-debate vote intention. Some scholars argue that
exposure to debates may convey only minimal knowledge, but stimulates campaign
interest and discussion in formulating voting decision (McLeod, Bybee, & Durall, 1979).
Although there are mixed results about the effects of the televised presidential
debates, voters may obtain impressions about how candidates prepared for the debates.
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Voters may learn about issues and the personalities of the candidates, or about the
candidates’ political parties (Sears & Chaffee, 1979).
Using functional theory (Benoit, 1998), that political campaign messages have
three basic functions: acclaiming (self-praise), attacking (downgrade opponents), and
defending (response to attacks); Benoit and other scholars have examined the content of
debates (Benoit, 1999; Benoit, Blaney, & Pier, 2000, Benoit & Brazeal, 2002). In their
analysis of the 1988 Bush-Dukakis presidential debates, Benoit and Brazeal (2002) found
that acclaims were the most common function (59%), followed by attacks (33%), and
defense (8%). Overall, debates focus overwhelmingly on campaign issues, rather than
candidate character, and candidates in debates acclaim far more than attack their
opponents, with attacks outnumbering defenses (McKinney & Carlin, 2004).
Some scholars argue, however, that political debate research tends to
overemphasize the content of debates and ignore communication form (Hellweg et al.,
1992). Although contemporary television is a unique communication medium that
emphasizes visual component over verbal dimension (Graber, 1987; Jamieson, 1988), the
visual content of debates is certainly not reflected in the existing analysis of campaign
debates (McKinney & Carlin, 2004).
In his analysis of the visual component of television in the 1976 debates, Tiemens
(1978) found an imbalanced visual presentation of the two candidates (i.e., camera shot),
with Jimmy Carter favored over Ford. Davis (1978), however, found that Ford and Carter
had a similar frequency of eye contact with the camera throughout their three debate
series. McKinney and Carlin (2004) argued that visual presentation of debates may very
well affect how and what viewers learn from debate viewing. In a similar view, Lang
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(1987) noted, “what matters most in debates is not substance of what the candidates
say… but how well they say it and whether the candidate projects the image he strives to
project”(p. 211).
Presidential debates have also changed dramatically in format and production
techniques. The design and practice of presidential debates have evolved significantly
from the earlier press conference format to a single moderator questioning candidates, the
town hall debate featuring citizen questioners, and the more informal candidate round-
table conversation or “chat” debate utilized for the first time in 2000 (McKinney &
Carlin, 2004).
The visual presentation and nonverbal dynamics of a town hall debate differ greatly
from those of a traditional candidate-behind-podium debate. The town-hall debate is
viewed as better, addressing issues of greatest concern to voters (McKinney & Carlin,
2004). Issues raised by citizens in a town-hall debate generally resulted in much more
salience in the public mind than did questions asked by a journalist in the single
moderator debate (Kaid et al., 2000). In his analysis of debate formats during the 1984
Democratic primary, Pfau (1984) also found that different debate formats produced
differences in communication outcomes. Some studies (Carlin, Howard, Stanfield, &
Reynolds, 1991; Carlin et al., 2001) have demonstrated several relationships between
candidate clash and debate formats.
Videostyle. Kaid and Davidson (1986) originally conceived the videostyle
perspective as a way of understanding the three major components of a candidate's
presentation style used in political advertising: verbal, nonverbal and video production
component. While verbal content elements focus on the semantic characteristics of the
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candidate’s messages (i.e., issue vs. image, negative vs. positive, or explicit strategy),
nonverbal components of political advertising deal with the visual and audio elements
without specific semantic meaning (i.e., gestures, facial expressions, or sounds). As a
third component of videostyle, production techniques include camera angles and
movement, staging and setting, editing, and other techniques that can cause us to interpret
what we see in different ways.
Although the personal style of a candidate exists outside of mediated forms of
communication, a candidate might necessarily adapt to elements of television language to
reach voters through presidential debates or televised political advertising (Kaid &
Johnston, 2001). Therefore, patterns of techniques used and strategies employed should
be made evident by evaluating the candidate’s debates. Videostyle can be understood as a
framework that has been used to analyze televised political debates and to describe the
way candidates present themselves to voters through the television medium,
encompassing the strategies, narratives, and symbols that candidates decide to use in
political debates (Kaid & Johnston, 2001). The visual aspects of debates are thus a very
important part of a candidate’s videostyle.
Cultural Assumptions
Foschi and Hales (1979) point out that when culture is treated as a theoretical
variable “culture ‘x’ and culture ‘y’ serve to operationally define a characteristic ‘a’,
which two cultures exhibit to different degrees” (p. 246). There are dimensions on which
cultures can be different or similar that can be used to explain communication across
cultures. Communication is unique within each culture, and at the same time, there are
systematic similarities and differences across cultures.
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A number of scholars in various disciplines have developed schemas that have
shown to be relatively effectual in comparing culture (i.e., Hofstede’s, 1980, dimensions
of cultural variability; Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck’s, 1961, value orientations; Parsons &
Shils’s 1951, pattern variables). Gudykunst (1987) refers to these schemas as dimensions
of socio-cultural variability that affect the specific values and norms that predominate in
different cultures. In applying such schemas, it is important to remember that although
individual differences exist in every culture, the purpose of these dimensions is to explore
the dominant socio-cultural orientations for any given group. Although there are many
dimensions on which cultures differ, this research will focus on Hall’s notion of high-low
context culture, Hofstede’s dimensions of cultural variability, and nonverbal behaviors.
Hofstede (1983, 2001) empirically derived four dimensions of socio-cultural
variability: individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and long-
term versus short-term orientation.
Individualism-collectivism is the major dimension of cultural variability used to
explain cross-cultural similarities and differences in behavior. Individualism-collectivism
exists at the cultural level (i.e., cultural norms/rules) and the individual level (i.e.,
individual values). For the objective of this study, the researcher intends to focus on the
cultural level individualism-collectivism.
Emphasis is placed on individual goals in individualistic cultures, while group
goals have precedence over individual goals in collectivistic cultures. The emphasis in
individualistic societies is on individual initiative and achievement, while emphasis is
placed on belonging to groups in collectivistic societies. This dimension is expected to
affect communication mainly through its influence on group identities and the
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differentiation between in-group and out-group communication (Gudykunst & Kim,
1992). In collectivistic culture, social control over individual behavior is stringently
reinforced through the maintenance of rigid hierarchical structure. This narrows the range
of acceptable individual variation in social behavior (Stewart, 1972). However,
Americans tend to believe that the individual has control of, and is responsible for, his or
her own life. In this cultural pattern, competition is encouraged and frontal attack is
considered as a matter of course (Stewart, 1972). Hofstede identified the U.S. as most
individualistic, while Korea as highly collectivistic. A recent study, however, suggests
that Koreans have as high a level of individualistic values as Americans, which implies
that traditional Korean values might have changed rather drastically since Hofstede’s
seminal study (Yoon, Kim, & Kim, 1998).
Another dimension that distinguishes Western from Eastern culture is uncertainty
avoidance. Uncertainty avoidance captures the cultural pattern of seeking stability,
predictability, and low stress rather than change and new experiences (Hofstede, 2001).
In other words, it involves a lack of tolerance in a socio-cultural system for ambiguity
and uncertainty, which expresses less tolerance for people or groups with deviant ideas or
behaviors and greater need for formal rules and absolute truth. People in high uncertainty
avoidance cultures try to avoid ambiguity. While Korean culture is placed high on the
uncertainty avoidance scale, American culture is low in uncertainty avoidance.
Power distance is the degree to which people tolerate inequality of power
distribution. In a high power distance society, hierarchy is strong and power is centralized
at the top. Individuals are very conscious of their rank, and superiors and subordinates
feel separate from one another. Korea is an example of a high power distance society. In
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a low power distance society, members of an organization feel relatively close to one
another and have a sense of equality as human beings.
In addition, Hofstede (1991) added time orientation to the former four dimensions.
This dimension focuses on the long-term versus short-term orientation that is related to
the choice of focus for people’s efforts: the future or the present. Generally, people from
East Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea tend to have tradition based
orientation, while Latin Americans are more oriented to the present, and Western
countries such as Americans, Canadians and Europeans have more of a future orientation.
While individualism-collectivism defines broad differences between cultures,
Hall’s (1976) high-low context notion focuses on cultural differences on a basis of
communication processes. Although some scholars have argued that all the cultures Hall
labels as low-context are individualistic, and high-context are collectivistic in Hofstede’s
scheme (Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988), this notion has been one of the most well
known dimensions used to describe and account for cultural differences. Hall focuses on
communication patterns within cultures along the four dimensions of context, space,
time, and information flow. High context communication is characterized by a dominant
dependence on implicit, rather than explicit, message. Meaning in a high context culture
is derived primarily from the physical context or, is internalized within individuals in the
culture. In contrast, communication in low context cultures relies primarily on verbal
codes. Hall describes the United States and some Western countries as low context
cultures and Korea, Japan and Taiwan as high context culture (Gudykunst & Kim, 1992).
During everyday communication, nonverbal behaviors (i.e., dress, gestures, eye
contact, or intonation) are typically coordinated in ways that provide for their mutual
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performance. Historically, however, verbal and nonverbal messages have been studied
separately, as though they were independent rather than co-occurring and interrelated
phenomena (Jones & LeBaron, 2001). Research has strongly suggested that major
cultural differences are embedded in nonverbal behaviors, because they are basic core
values that are slow to change (Kim, 1992).
Everyday experience suggests that smiling is one of the most common nonverbal
signals used for communication among humans (Ekman & Friesen, 1971). While a smile
of happiness may be a universal expression, cultural, contextual, and personal influences
can affect its meaning and frequency, as well as degree of expansiveness (Kim, 1992).
Many Asian cultures suppress facial expression as much as possible. This has made them
seem less communicative and less expressive in both verbal and nonverbal behavior than
Americans (Yim, 1970). Adults, especially men, are not expected to smile frequently in
Korea because it seems to be a sign of shallowness and lack of respect.
Hand and arm gestures are another form of culture-specific expression that
indicates the intensity of an emotional state. Clearly, there are differences among cultural
groups as to what is considered an appropriate frequency and style of hand and arm
gestures (Eisenberg & Smith, 1971). In the Eastern view, adults who use many gestures
when they speak are thought to be childish, because repression of overt bodily expression
connotes self-control (Ramsey, 1984). On the other hand, Western culture is likely to use
strong expressive gestures to convey messages.
Cross-Cultural Perspectives of Political Debates
While political debates have been a dominant part of U.S. political campaigns, they
have not gained significance in the political culture of most other countries until recently.
This may be a result of differences in the institutional and political systems, cultural
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tradition, or history of democracy in the countries. As Kaid (2004) noted, most European
systems are characterized by multiparty systems, shorter campaign periods, party-
centered political culture, and public-controlled media. Compared to their European
counterparts, democracies in Asian and African countries have a relatively short history.
Seib (2000) noted that debates can symbolize the coming of political maturity, where
democracy is young and struggling. This assertion can be well illustrated by the 1994
debate in South Africa between Mandela and Klerk.
Although a number of countries have followed the U.S. in developing televised
debate traditions of their own, few studies of televised campaign debates occurring in the
democracies of the world (McKinney & Carlin, 2004): analysis of televised debates in
Canada (Blais & Boyer, 1996), in the former West Germany (Baker & Norpoth, 1981;
Schrott, 1990), in South Korea (Kang & Jaung, 1999), in Australia (Ward & Walsh,
1999), in Israel (Blum-Kulka & Liebes, 1999), and in New Zealand (Clark, 1999).
Furthermore , a majority of these studies failed to adopt diverse approaches across
national boundaries; except for Schrott’s (1984) comparative study of the 1980 U.S. and
West German debates and Matsaganis and Weingarten’s (2001) comparison of the 2000
U.S. presidential and Greek prime minister debates.
Matsagains and Weingarten explored the similarities and differences in format,
style, journalistic involvement, and issues covered in the first presidential debate of the
2000 U.S. election campaign and the Greek Prime Minister debate. Although there are
few similarities in terms of the candidates’ style, they found that political candidates used
knowledge of geography, culture, and history to formulate their campaigns and convey
their messages to the voters.
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Political Candidate Debates in Korea
Televised debates among presidential candidates began with the 1997 election
campaign since new election laws prohibited outdoor mass rallies during the campaign.
They instead encouraged candidates to rely more on a mass mediated campaign.
According to the 1997 Korean Election survey, more than 80 percent of the respondents
said that television had some, if not decisive, influences on their voting decision. This
implies that the first televised debates were highly effective and also influenced campaign
strategies of candidates. In the 2002 Korean presidential election, candidate debates were
held three times during the official campaign periods. Thus, the history of televised
political debates is quite short in Korea.
Scholars have relatively more interest in the effects of political debates on the
audience over the content of the televised debates. Using panel survey methods, Cheong
(2003) examined the influence of the presidential debates on voters’ cognition, and found
that televised debates activate remarks related to voters’ cognition of candidates. Lee
(2004) also conducted a survey to explore the effects of debates on voters’ change in
candidate image perception. The finding showed that the debates did affect the viewers’
change in the image of presidential candidates.
Hypotheses and Research Questions
The first group of hypotheses concerning verbal or message components of
videostyle is based on Hall’s (1981) differentiations of cultures on the basis of the
communication context continuum. In a low-context culture like the U.S., most
information is contained in the explicit verbal messages. Members of the low-context
culture tend to communicate in a direct manner and express conflict or dissatisfaction
openly using facts and data. On the other hand, in a high-context culture like Korea, most
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information is encoded in the physical context or internalized in the person, while little is
in the coded or explicit messages avoiding confrontation (De Mooij, 1997).
The cultural norms of individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance can
also be utilized for the first group of hypotheses. Members of collectivistic cultures
suppress emotional displays that are contradictory to the mood of the group, because
maintaining group affect is a primary value, while members in individualistic cultures are
encouraged to express emotions because individual freedom tends to be considered as an
important value (Andersen, 1988). In a society of high uncertainty avoidance, members
in the society express less tolerance for people or groups with deviant behaviors and
greater need for formal rules (Hofstede, 1983). On the basis of these expectations, it is
hypothesized as follows:
H1-1: U.S. presidential candidates will emphasize issue more than image compared to Korean presidential candidates.
H1-2: U.S. presidential candidates will use more negative appeals than positive appeals compared to Korean presidential candidates.
H1-3: U.S. presidential candidates will rely more on logical appeal than Korean presidential candidates.
H1-4: U.S. presidential candidates will rely more on emotional appeal than Korean presidential candidates.
H1-5: U.S. presidential candidates will rely less on ethical appeal than Korean presidential candidates.
Along with the first set of hypotheses, the researcher is interested in the nature of
negative attacks, if candidates use negative appeals. In addition, it would be interesting to
examine if there are some differences in the purpose of the negative attacks. Thus, the
following research question was posed.
RQ1: What are significant similarities and/or differences in the uses and nature of negative attacks that candidates rely on, between the U.S. and Korea?
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The second aspect of videostyle relates to nonverbal content, and scholars have
long acknowledged the importance of nonverbal and visual cues. Many of these elements
are particularly important to the way candidates present themselves (Kaid & Davidson,
1986). People in Asian cultures are used to being reluctant in showing their emotions
(Andersen, Hecht, Hoobler, & Smallwood, 2003). In contrast, people in individualistic
cultures smile more than in normality oriented culture (Tompkins, 1984). This has made
Koreans seem less communicative and expressive in facial expressions and body
movements. In the U.S., eye contact indicates a degree of attention and interest, and
influences attitude change or persuasion, but Koreans tend to be uncomfortable with
direct and intensive eye contact until the relationship is firmly established (Andersen et
al., 2003). These cultural contexts lead to the second set of hypotheses as follows:
H2-1: U.S. presidential candidates will smile more than Korean presidential candidates.
H2-2: U.S. presidential candidates will use more body movements than Korean presidential candidates.
H2-3: U.S. presidential candidates will use more eye contact than Korean presidential candidates.
METHODOLOGY
A content analysis of the presidential debates was undertaken to analyze the verbal,
nonverbal components of the presidential campaigns in the U.S. and Korea.
Sample
The population of this study was defined as all televised presidential debates in
major network television during the presidential election campaigns in both countries.
The years used for comparison will be between 1992 and 2004 (1992, 1996, 2000, and
2004 for the U.S.; 1997 and 2002 for Korea). Because random sampling is almost
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impossible in cross-cultural research (Brislin & Baumgardner, 1971), the decision was
made to perform the analysis with as complete a set of all presidential debate statements
from each election year.
The recordings of U.S. presidential debates obtained from the C-SPAN archives.
The Korean presidential debates were obtained from the Korean Broadcasting System
(KBS) and Mun-Hwa Broadcasting Company (MBC).
The unit of analysis for the coding process was a candidate statement made in
response to a question or a response to a question answered by the other candidate in the
debates. This means that the statements are usually 60 seconds or longer, and each
statement was identifiable as coming from one candidate or the other.
Based on the defined unit of analysis, a total of 1225 samples were yielded. For this
study, the U.S. samples consisted of 671 debate statements, while Korean samples
consisted of 554 debate statements.
Coding Categories
The categories were adapted and modified from videostyle, which incorporates
verbal and nonverbal components. The categories include emphasis of debates (issue
debates emphasizing a policy issue or proposal, and image debates emphasizing the
candidate’s background, characteristics, or qualifications), focus of debates (positive
dimension focused on the candidate acclaiming him/herself or opponent, negative
dimension focused on criticisms of the opponent, including implied comparisons), facial
expressions (smiling, attentive/serious, and glaring/frowning), body movement (hand and
arm gestures; nonuse in which no hands and arms are used or hands are held downward,
mild use in which hands are raised below the shoulder line, and broad use in which hands
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are raised above the shoulder line or are very expressive), and eye contact (almost
always, sometimes, almost never).
For the nature of negative attacks in debates, categories include attack on (1)
personal characteristics of opponent, (2) issue stands/consistency of opponent, (3)
candidate's group affiliations/associations, (4) opponent’s background/qualifications and
(5) opponent’s performance in past offices/positions.
For the types of appeals used in debates, categories include logical appeals,
emotional appeals and ethical appeal. Logical appeals can be described as use of evidence
in debates, in which facts are presented in order to persuade viewers by use of statistics,
logical arguments, examples, etc. Emotional appeals in debates are designed to invoke
particular feelings or emotions in viewers. This appeal includes happiness, good will,
pride, patriotism, anger, etc. Ethical appeals emphasize a candidate’s qualifications as a
viable leader. These appeals can be made to enhance the credibility and trustworthiness
of a candidate by presenting all he/she has done, is capable of doing, and how reliable
he/she is.
Coding Procedure and Intercoder Reliability
A total of six coders (four for the U.S. and two for Korea) were hired and trained.
Before the actual coding and analysis of debates began, a reliability test was undertaken
to determine whether the category definitions were clear, objective, and mutually
exclusive, so that coders working independently, could achieve a high level of agreement.
A commonly used measure of intercoder reliability, Scott’s (1955) pi1, was employed in
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this study. The acceptable point for intercoder reliability estimate of each coding category
was higher than .80 (Hughes & Garrett, 1990).
The intercoder reliability was estimated for the U.S. and Korean coders,
respectively during the training session, and the index ranged from .82 to 1.0, which was
satisfactory. Scott’s pi was 1.0 for name of country, name of candidates, and candidate
status. The index was .90 for emphasis of issue vs. image, .88 for negative vs.
positive, .87 for nature of attack, .82 for type of appeals, 89 for issues, .90 for facial
expression, .91 for body movement, and .86 for eye contact.
Chi-squares for each category by country were run to test for similarities and/or
differences in observed frequencies.
RESULTS
Comparisons of Verbal Components
Hypothesis 1-1 predicted that U.S. presidential candidates would emphasize issue
more than image compared to Korean candidates. As shown in Table 1, there was no
statistically significant difference in emphasizing issues or images across the two
countries. Thus, hypothesis 1-1 was not supported.
Table 1. Emphasis and focus of debatesU.S. (%) Korea (%)
Sometimes 117 (17.4) 19 (3.4)Almost never 59 (8.8) 80 (14.4)
2 = 64.892 (df=2), p= .000
Hypothesis 2-1 predicted that U.S. candidates were expected to smile more than
Korean candidates. As the findings in Table 4 show, the hypothesis was not supported.
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The results, instead, indicate that Korean candidates smiled more than American
candidates. The findings indicate that political debates seem to not reflect the expected
cultural orientation toward the use of smiles between two countries. The results showed
that Korean candidates (12.6%) smiled more than their American counterparts (7.2%).
Unlike previous studies that suggest that people in Oriental cultures do not readily show
emotions, and that Korean adults rarely smile, the findings indicate that Korean
candidates smiled more often than their American counterparts.
Hypothesis 2-2 predicted that U.S. candidates would use more body movements
than Korean candidates. The hypothesis was confirmed. Here, the results are in line with
the predicted cultural orientation toward the use of body movements between the two
countries. American candidates (35.5%) showed more body movements than their
Korean counterparts (24.9%).
In line with the last examination of nonverbal component of the videostyle,
Hypothesis 2-3 predicted that U.S. candidates would use more eye contact than Korean
candidates. The hypothesis was not supported. Korean candidates used almost always eye
contact more than their American counterparts at a statistically significant level, which
might contradict the cultural norms this study proposed. A slightly larger percentage of
Korean candidates (82.1%) used almost always eye contact, while a smaller percentage of
the American candidates (73.8%) maintained the eye contact.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
This study provided one opportunity to gain better understandings and insights into
how media phenomena are related to cultural orientation by comparing and contrasting
the videostyles of presidential debates across the United States and Korea.
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Examination of emphasized and focused verbal components of the debates reveals
that there were no significant differences between the two countries. In terms of verbal
components of the videostyles, these findings indicate that there seems to be little place
in debates for the exhibition of cultural norms. The nature of presidential debates might
overpower cultural norms, which are likely to be embedded in debates. In addition, the
results imply that American-style presidential debates have gained significance in the
political processes in Korea
In a deeper examination of the nature of negative attacks, the results provided
significant differences between the two countries. American candidates relied more on
opponents’ issue stands, past performance in political office, and personal characteristics,
while Korean candidates used significantly more opponents’ group affiliations and
backgrounds to make negative attacks. As Gudykunst and Kim observed (1992), the
emphasis in individualistic societies is on individual initiative and achievement, while
emphasis is placed on belonging to groups in collectivistic societies. In making attacks on
opponents, thus, American politicians tended to focus on an opponent’s issue stands,
personality and performance, believing that the individual has control of, and is
responsible for, his or her own life. In comparison, Korean candidates tend to rely more
on group identities of opponents by reflecting the highly collectivistic culture of Korean
society.
Turning to the question of nonverbal components of the videostyle, the findings
showed that American candidates used body movements more often than Korean
candidates. Korean candidates frequently used a limited gesturing of their hands, while
American candidates actively used both slight and broad body movements involving
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various gestures. Considering body movements as a mirror of the intensity of emotion,
the American candidates seemed to be more communicative and expressive than Korean
candidates. On the other hand, Koreans seem less communicative and less expressive in
body movements, because repression of overt bodily expressions connotes self-control in
Eastern cultures (Ramsey, 1984).
Compared to the previous research suggesting that people in Oriental cultures do
not readily use facial expressions, the findings of this study reveal that Korean candidates
smiled more than their American counterparts at large. As Porter and Samovar (1998)
argued, members of high power distance cultures tend to smile more in order to appear
polite or appease superiors. In addition to the cultural norm, Korean candidates’
increasing emphasis on candidate image and the television medium might be a good
rationale for the findings. Beginning with the presidential election held in 1987, Korean
politics started to apply more sophisticated campaign strategies based on marketing
techniques. With television predisposed to dramatic and visual imagery, Korean
candidates may have come to rely heavily on smiles to convey warmth and construct
favorable images. Although there has been evidence that nonverbal behaviors are
oriented through respective cultural actions, the results of the current study may imply
that presidential candidates in both countries perceived a smile as the social norm of a
universal expression of happiness that can accommodate positive images of presidential
candidates in political debates.
Throughout the content analysis of the presidential debates, to the extent that clear
differences exist between American and Korean cultural patterns, political debates, which
are a conspicuous indicator of cultural values, appear to manifest these differences at
23
large. It should, however, be kept in mind that there might be other plausible causes for
these differences, such as the political system, the level of technology development, and
nature of communication forms.
The findings of this study also imply that “American-style” political debates have
gained significance in the political processes of Korean democracy, although different
parameters of culture, political systems, and media systems can promote or constrain
symbols and messages exchanged between political candidates and voters. Furthermore,
considering rapid development of new communication technologies, we can observe that
global diffusion of political communication tends to be manifest in Korea and many
democracies where varied aspects such as videostyle of debate have been adopted. The
fact also seems to be in line with findings of this study that Korean candidates showed
more smile and eye contact.
Although the findings of this study do provide new information and insights into
the nature of televised presidential debates in the United States and Korea, some
limitations should be noted when interpreting the results.
A primary limitation of this study is that it is not concerned with the effectiveness
of political debates. Future research needs to analyze the content and effectiveness of
political debates in order to more fully provide valuable information about the
relationship between the two countries and cultural orientations.
Given this limitation, one suggestion for future research is to examine the effects of
political debates on voters between the two countries. Studies employing a robust
experimental design will give further insight into the relationship between media
24
representations of candidates and cultural values. In addition, we might determine the
degree of cognitive, affective and even behavioral effects on voters across culture.
Future research also should include more countries as representative of the Eastern
and Western cultures. Although they have different political systems, Taiwan and Japan
have similar cultural norms with many perspectives found in Korea. The U.K. would be a
good example of representative of the Western culture and also has similar cultural norms
found in the U.S. In addition, the U.K. has a similar political system to the Japanese
political system. This implementation can give solid generalizability of findings to this
study or yield more varied views.
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국문초록
본 연구는 정치커뮤니케이션의 대안적 형태인 대통령 후보자 토론에 반영된
문화적 가치를 연구하고자 했다. 한국과 미국의 대통령 후보자 토론의 비디오
스타일을 비교하고 대조해 봄으로써 정치토론이 어떤 방식으로 개별 문화를
반영하는 매개체로써 두드러진 역할을 하는지를 밝혀내 보고자 했다. 비디오
스타일의 두 가지 요소, 언어적 그리고 비언어적 요소를 내용분석 한 결과, 대통령
후보자 토론회는 각 국가의 문화적 가치, 예를 들자면 high-low context
communication, degree of uncertainty avoidance, and nonverbal expressions 의
