Audience responses and the context of political speeches

Hyangmi Choi,Darren Reed,Peter Bull

doi:10.5964/jspp.v4i2.618

Abstract

Previous studies showed that cultural dimensions (individualism and collectivism) are related to audience behavior in responding to political speeches. However, this study suggests that speech context is an important issue to be considered in understanding speaker-audience interaction in political speeches. Forms of response, audience behavior, and response rates were analyzed in three speech contexts: acceptance speeches to nomination as political parties’ candidates for presidential election, presidential election campaign speeches, and presidential inauguration speeches in the Korean presidential election of 2012. We found that audience response forms and behavior were distinctive according to the three speech contexts: in-group partisan leadership, competitive, and formal contexts. However, there was no relationship between the affiliative response rate and electoral success in the election. The function of the audience response is popularity and support of a speaker in acceptance and election campaign speeches, while it is conformity to social norms in inauguration speeches.

Highlights

IntroductionPrevious studies showed that cultural dimensions (individualism and collectivism) are related to audience behavior in responding to political speeches
Previous studies showed that cultural dimensions are related to audience behavior in responding to political speeches
This study has demonstrated micro-analysis on audience behavior to political oratory and a number of distinctive features in audience responses for each of three speech contexts and cultures

Summary

Introduction

Previous studies showed that cultural dimensions (individualism and collectivism) are related to audience behavior in responding to political speeches. The function of the audience response is popularity and support of a speaker in acceptance and election campaign speeches, while it is conformity to social norms in inauguration speeches. We study (1) the relationship between audience responses and in-group leadership, (2) the function of audience responses according to the speech contexts, and (3) the relationship between audience responses and electoral success in terms of cultural dimensions and election systems. We discuss the importance of speech context in speaker-audience interaction, contextual and cultural differences in the function of audience responses, and the relationship between audience response rates and voting systems. The audience members’ collective responses play an important role in the oratorical setting

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Conclusion