Influence of poll results on the advocates’ political discourse: An application of functional analysis debates to online messages in the 2002 Korean presidential election

Abstract

This study examines how online users employed three functional utterances—acclaim, attack, and defense—when they provided support for candidates and criticized opponent candidates during the 2002 presidential election campaign in Korea. The online postings are a forum for political discourse. Overall, the online forum participants rely heavily on attacks when debating the merit of the presidential candidates. The advocates of the leading candidate used more defense tactics than those of the candidate who was behind, whereas the advocates of the less popular candidate used more attacks than those supporting the leading candidate. The study compares the online postings that responded to a national poll that was conducted at nine different times. The findings suggest that the fluctuation of poll data influences the nature and function of the online discourse. The correlation between the frequency of political discourse and candidates’ popularity showed that, for the advocates supporting the strong candidate, acclaims were positively correlated while attacks and defenses were negatively correlated with popularity. For the advocates of the weaker candidate, only defense was positively correlated. Acclaims and attacks were negatively correlated with candidate popularity.