The Reflection of Cultural Parameters on Videostyles of Televised Political Spots in the US and Korea

Abstract

Considering cross-cultural aspects of political communication, this study explores how political advertising plays a conspicuous role as an indicator of cultural orientations by comparing and contrasting videostyles of the televised political spots between the United States and Korea since the presidential election campaigns held in 1992. A content analysis of verbal, nonverbal and production components of the videostyles shows that televised political spots were highly reflective of the respective cultural values with regard to high/low-context communication, degree of uncertainty avoidance, nonverbal expressions, and the social aspect of Che-Myon. Thus, indigenous cultural values tend to be reproduced in idealized form through political advertising so that people of each country can identify closely with the political candidate of the spots.

Keywords:

• Political Advertising
• Television
• Intercultural Communication
• United States
• Korea

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Communication Conference (Top Paper Award, International Division, Asian Journal of Communication Outstanding Paper Award), Toronto, August 2004.