‘Everything is always President Roh's fault?’: emotional reactions to politics and economy as sources of presidential evaluations and the role of media use and interpersonal communication

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the respective effects of cognitive and emotional elements on political judgments, and the effects of media use and political talk on those two elements. Along with the cognitive judgment about political and economic issues/policies, we explored the effect of emotional responses to political and economic situations. During this process, we also looked at the effect of media use and interpersonal communication channels. By analyzing survey data gathered in December 2007, it was first found that voters' cognitive judgment and emotional responses to political and economic situations, respectively, affected their evaluation of the incumbent president. Second, emotional reactions such as ‘pride’ in politics, and ‘hope’ and ‘anger’ for economics, showed significant influence on their evaluation of the president's performance. Third, voters' patterns of media use and interpersonal talk appeared to exert significant influences on those cognitive judgments and emotional responses to political and economic reality.

Keywords:

• presidential election
• emotional responses
• cognitive judgment
• media use
• political talk
• discrete emotions

Notes

^†The Asian Journal of Communication occasionally publishes translations of non-English research articles that merit a wider audience. The goal is to help bridge the language barrier and enhance dialogue among scholars of Asian communication. The Editor welcomes suggestions for articles to be featured in future issues.

^‡This article has been extensively revised from the original version, published in the 2008 Korean Journal of Journalism and Communication Studies, 52(4), 299–323. The original version won the 2008 best academic achievement paper award of the Korean Society for Journalism and Communication Studies (KSJCS), South Korea, and was nominated by the Korean American Communication Association (KACA). The rights for publishing this translated version have been obtained from the Korean Journal of Journalism and Communication Studies.

1. For more details about the data set of the 2007 KPF study, such as sampling design, sampling procedures, and sampling errors, see Yoo, Na, and Lee (2007).

2. Only the relevant results were mentioned here with regard to the six multiple regression analyses. Full regression tables are available upon request from the authors.