There are differences between Korean and American cultures, and their differences are reflected in the contexts of their political advertisements. Recently, it has been said that American style of political advertising starts to dominate all the polit...
There are differences between Korean and American cultures, and their differences are reflected in the contexts of their political advertisements. Recently, it has been said that American style of political advertising starts to dominate all the political advertising markets in the world. But, it is questionable whether American style and methods of political advertising really dominates the Korean political advertising market, to what extent American style of political advertising has been adopted in the contexts of Korean political advertisement, and to what extent Korean cultures persist to be reflected in Korean political advertisement. Therefore, this thesis starts from the central hypothesis that Korean cultures are still reflected in the recent Korean political advertisements, although more and more American style of political advertising has been adopted in Korea.
Hofstede's four dimensional factors of culture as a conceptual framework are used to analyze the cultural aspects of contexts and messages used in Korean and American advertisements. Historial and comparative analyses are also used to analyze the cultural and historical backgrounds of Korean presidential election campaigns. Many documental and empirical data are mainly used to prove the central hypothesis.
From the research on the Korean and American political advertisements used in their presidential election campaigns, it is found that American style of political advertising has been increasingly adopted in Korean political advertisements especially since the year of 1991. It is also found that to a considerable degree Korean cultural values persist to be reflected in the contexts and messages of Korean political advertisements. It implies that more effective strategies and methods of political advertising can be developed to appeal to the targeted constituencies when the unique cultural values and sentiments of Korean are identified and considered.