The word “democracy” originates from the Greek words ...



Videostyles of Televised Presidential Debates in the U.S. and Korea

Hyoungkoo Khang, Ph. D

Lecturer

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

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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 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

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. 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 (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 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.

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 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 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 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 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.

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 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?

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 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 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) pi[1], was employed in 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 debates

| |U.S. (%) |Korea (%) |

|Emphasis |Issue |555 (82.7) |439 (79.2) |

| |Image |116 (17.3) |115 (20.8) |

| (2 = 2.389 (df=1), p= .066 |

|Focus |Positive |452 (68.4) |366 (66.8) |

| |Negative |209 (31.6) |182 (32.2) |

| (2 = .347 (df=1), p= .278 |

Hypothesis 1-2 suggested that U.S. presidential candidates would use more negative appeals than positive appeals in comparison with Korean candidates. The hypothesis was not supported. As revealed in Table 1, there is no statistically significant difference between the two countries.

In Hypothesis 1-3, we predicted that U.S. candidates would rely more on logical appeals than Korean presidential candidates. This hypothesis was not supported. The results showed that there was no statistically significant difference in use of logical appeals across the two countries.

Table 2. Types of appeals

| |U.S. (%) |Korea (%) |

|Logical |Present |535 (79.7) |438 (79.1) |

| |Absent |136 (20.3) |116 (20.9) |

| (2 = .083 (df=1), p= .387 |

|Emotional |Present |176 (26.2) |102 (18.4) |

| |Absent |495 (73.8) |452 (81.6) |

| (2 = 10.572(df=1), p= .001 |

|Ethical |Present |253 (37.7) | 64 (11.6) |

| |Absent |418 (62.3) |490 (88.4) |

| (2 = 108.206 (df=1), p= .000 |

Hypothesis 1-4, maintaining that U.S. candidates would rely more on emotional appeal than Korean candidates, was confirmed. Chi-square analysis shows that there is a difference in the use of emotional appeals at a statistically significant level across the two countries. The results show that American candidates rely more on emotional appeals than Korean candidates. The finding indicates that American candidates use more emotional appeals which are designed to invoke particular feelings or emotions, when compared to Korean counterparts.

In Hypothesis 1-5, we predicted that U.S. candidates would use fewer ethical appeals than their Korean counterparts. This expectation was not confirmed. The results showed that U.S. candidates (38%) used more ethical appeals than their Korean counterparts (12%) at a statistically significant level. The result was significantly different from our expectations.

Nature of negative appeals.

Table 3 shows that American candidates used significantly more personal characteristic of opponents than their Korean counterparts. American candidates (13.4%) used more personal characteristic attacks than Korean candidates (7.6%).

In examining difference in the use of issue stands of opponents, as shown in Table 3, the results show that American candidates used significantly more issue stands of opponents to make attacks than their Korean counterparts. American candidates (41.3%) also used more issue stands of opponents than Korean candidates (17.9%) to make an attack.

Table 3. Nature of negative appeals

| |U.S. (%) |Korea (%) |

|Personal characteristics|Present | 90 (13.4) | 42 (7.6) |

| |Absent |581 (86.6) |512 (92.4) |

| (2 = 10.734 (df=1), p= .001 |

|Issue stands |Present |277 (41.3) | 99 (17.9) |

| |Absent |394 (58.7) |455 (82.1) |

| (2 = 78.187 (df=1), p= .000 |

|Group affiliations |Present | 56 (8.3) |153 (27.6) |

| |Absent |615 (91.7) |401 (72.4) |

| (2 = 79.646 (df=1), p= .000 |

|Opponent’s backgrounds |Present | 22 (3.3) | 49 (8.8) |

| |Absent |649 (96.7) |505 (91.2) |

| (2 = 17.219 (df=1), p= .000 |

|Opponent’s performance |Present |190 (28.3) | 79 (14.3) |

| |Absent |481 (71.7) |475 (85.7) |

| (2 = 34.985 (df=1), p= .000 |

Table 3 shows that Korean candidates in debates used significantly more group affiliations of opponents than their American counterparts. A larger percentage of Korean candidates (27.6%) used group affiliations of opponents, while a smaller percentage of American candidates (8.3%) relied on the negative appeal.

In use of opponent background, Table 3 shows that Korean candidates in debates used opponent background significantly more than their American counterparts. For debates, a larger percentage of Korean candidates (8.8%) used opponent background,

In another nature of negative appeals, Table 3 shows that American candidates used opponent performance significantly more than their Korean counterparts, but only for debates. For debates, more American candidates (28.3%) used opponent performance, than their Korean counterparts (14.3%) in using negative appeals.

Regarding the nature of negative appeals, American candidates were likely to use more personal characteristics, issue stands and opponent performance than their Korean counterparts to make attacks. In contrast, Korean candidates relied more on group affiliations and candidate background than the American candidates.

Comparisons of Nonverbal Components

Table 4. Nonverbal components by country

| |U.S. (%) |Korea (%) |

|Facial expressions |Smiling | 48 (7.2) | 70 (12.6) |

| |Attentive/serious |602 (89.7) |482 (87.0) |

| |Frowning/glaring | 21 (3.1) | 2 (0.4) |

| (2 = 22.108 (df=2), p= .000 |

|Body movement |Frequent |238 (35.5) |138 (24.9) |

| |Moderate |405 (60.4) |291 (52.5) |

| |Never | 28 (4.2) |125 (22.6) |

| (2 = 96.470 (df=2), p= .000 |

|Eye contact |Almost always |495 (73.8) |455 (82.1) |

| |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. 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.

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 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 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 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 expressions의 관점에서 개별 국가의 특성을 대체로 반영하는 것으로 나타났다. 하지만, 문화적 맥락으로 대부분 설명할 수 있었던 기존 정치광고에 대한 문화비교 연구와는 달리, 텔레비전 정치 토론회는 토론의 본질적인 특성과 미국화가 비디오스타일에 반영되어 문화적 맥락을 바탕으로 한 가설 중 일부가 지지 받지 못하고 있는 것으로 나타났다.

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