Functional Analysis of Televised Political Spots and Debates in Korean Presidential Elections, 1992-2007

Utilizing the functional approach, this study explores similarities and differences between televised political spots and presidential debates in Korean presidential elections. Overall, the study found that there were dear differences in the use of theme functions, utterances, and types of each function between televised political debates and spots. In addition, the results of this study were consistent with findings of previous studies that acclaims were the most common discourse function, followed by attacks, and defense. Considering the nature of political advertising, candidates prefer to use spots over debates because they can portray elements of and character and image through the spots in a more impressive way. In contrast, the nature of discussion seems to lead candidates to use more factual acclaims and attacks and to focus on issues more than character during debates. Adapted from the source document.