Japanese Political Interviews: The Integration of Conversation Analysis and Facial Expression Analysis

Abstract

This paper considers Japanese political interviews to integrate conversation and facial expression analysis. The behaviors of political leaders will be disclosed by analyzing questions and responses by using the turn-taking system in conversation analysis. Additionally, audiences who cannot understand verbal expressions alone will understand the psychology of political leaders by analyzing their facial expressions. Integral analyses promote understanding of the types of facial and verbal expressions of politicians and their effect on public opinion. Politicians have unique techniques to convince people. If people do not know these techniques and ways of various expressions, they will become confused, and politics may fall into populism as a result. To avoid this, a complete understanding of verbal and non-verbal behaviors is needed. This paper presents two analyses. The first analysis is a qualitative analysis that deals with Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and shows that differences between words and happy facial expressions occur. That result indicates that Abe expresses disgusted facial expressions when faced with the same question from an interviewer. The second is a quantitative multiple regression analysis where the dependent variables are six facial expressions: happy, sad, angry, surprised, scared, and disgusted. The independent variable is when politicians have a threat to face. Political interviews that directly inform audiences are used as a tool by politicians. Those interviews play an important role in modeling public opinion. The audience watches political interviews, and these mold support to the party. Watching political interviews contributes to the decision to support the political party when they vote in a coming election.