textual analysis of a political message: the inaugural addresses of two korean presidents

Chung Joo Chung

Ph.D. Candidate

Department of Communication

State University of New York at Buffalo

cjchung@buffalo.edu

Textual Analysis of a Political

Message:

The Inaugural Addresses of Two Korean

Presidents

Han Woo Park

Associate Professor

Department of Media and Information

YeungNam University, Korea

hanpark2020@gmail.com

Chung, C., & Park, H. W. (2010). Textual analysis of a political message: The inaugural addresses of two Korean presidents. Social Science Information. Forthcoming. [SSCI, ISSN: 1461-7412]

Introduction- Addresses of Presidents

When a new president is elected, citizens often focus on the inaugural address

Presidents use rhetorical language that incorporates appealing functions and expressions with well-composed structure and clear arguments in order to garner citizens’ support for their policies

A good opportunity for presidents to articulate not only administrative goals, policy and philosophy but also their hopes and dreams for the nation.

The communication process of inaugural addresses creates new forms of social, cultural, and political communication

Introduction- Research areas

Assumption The thoughts and consciousness of the elected president will be reflected

in the president’s inaugural address Message is an independent social system acting as a symbolic or cognitive

system (Leydesdorff, 2003)

Literary characteristics of inaugural addresses from linguistic, quantitative, and psychological perspectives.

Two presidential inaugural addresses Moo-Hyun Roh (in office 2003-2008) Myung-Bak Lee (in office 2008-2013)

Mixed methods of Korean Key Words in Context (KrKwic) and Korean Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (K-LIWC).

Introduction- why this study is needed?

Their presidencies represent an ideological contrast A period of major transition in which the leadership philosophy shifted from left-

wing to right-wing

The first to use Korean presidents’ inaugural addresses as a window through which to examine the change of political power

The rhetorical aspects of both campaign and governance have been overlooked or ignored

Links between rhetorical substance & style and the characteristics of each president’s political & social viewpoints.

Research Questions

RQ1: What is the structure of presidential inaugural addresses in Korea?

RQ2: What are the similarities and differences in the structure of inaugural addresses between the previous and current presidents, given their different political perspectives?

Methods

Data The inaugural addresses of President Moo-Hyun Roh in 2003 and

President Myung-Bak Lee in 2008 Database (http://www.kinds.or.kr) of the Korean Press Foundation.

KrKwic and K-LIWC.

Result 1) KrKwic Analysis

Result 1) KrKwic Analysis (President Rho)

Result 1) KrKwic Analysis (President Lee)

Result 1) KrKwic Analysis

Result2) K-LIWC Analysis

Discussion & Conclusion

The meaning of political texts can be easily analyzed using network-oriented indicators and visualizations

A combination of network-analytical methods with sentimental text analysis.

Providing an analytical tool to help understand not only the relationship between rhetorical substance and style, but also the characteristics of presidents’ political and social viewpoints.

The procedure used in this study can be repeated by other researchers.

Limitation & Suggestion

Need for more research to investigate a number of important features and patterns observed in the evolving political communication system

Is the methodology employed in this study the best approach?

Thank you for listening