Comparing Political Cultures Through Political Websites

South Korean and Japanese Politicians Online: Comparing Political Cultures Through Political Websites Leslie M. Tkach-Kawasaki and Han Woo Park Aoir 8.0 Vancouver, Canada October 18-20, 2007

Overview
Introduction and research questions
Theorizing website content analysis
South Korean and Japanese political cultures: Same? Different?
Methodology
Results and Discussion
Conclusion

Research questions
What kind of political information and communications features are present on politician websites?
What kind of hyperlink strategies are they demonstrating?
Are they utilizing blogs and wireless websites?

Theorizing website content analysis Optimists/ Pessimists Normal- ization Best Practices (Congress Online Project) Web Campaign- ing Typology Hyperlink and Network Analysis Political Culture

Content analysis overview Japan Tkach-Kawasaki (2006) Party & member UK Lusoli, W. & Ward, J. (2005) USA Foot & Schneider (2002) Collection of various contents and links Party & candidate Party & politician South Korea Park et al. (2004, 2005) Mainly hyperlinks USA Owen et al. (1999), Carter (1999) Collection of various contents and links Elected member USA Foot et al. (2003) Mainly hyperlinks UK Ward & Gibson (2003) USA Davis (1999), Kamarck (1999) Collection of various contents (links) Candidate Individual politician Australia Ackland & Gibson (2004) Singapore Ting & Kluver (2004) Mainly hyperlinks Singapore Kluver (2004) Japan Tkach-Kawasaki (2003) USA & UK Gibson et al. (2003) UK Gibson & Ward (1998) USA Margolis et al. (1997, 1999) Collection of various website contents including hyperlinks Party Geographical orientation Selected article(s) Research area Website type

Political Culture….
“… is the pattern of individual attitudes and orientations toward politics among the members of a political system (Almond and Verba, 1989)
the system of empirical beliefs, expressive symbols, and values which define the situation in which political action takes place” (Verba et al., 1978)
“… sets the parameters of the political game…” (Martin and Stronach, 1992)
Relationship-oriented (Pye 1985)

South Korean and Japanese political cultures: Same? Different?
Strict (media, timing, and distribution)
Strict (media, donations, and F2F)
Election regulations
Increasingly transparent
Weak civil society
Local support
Increasingly transparent
Strong civil society
Politicians-public
Ruling-opposition
Emerging two-party system
Ideologically oriented (recently)
Two-party system
Political parties-public
Weak/strong (major/ minor parties)
Mediated leader role
Weak
Leader has strong influence on party
Party-politician Japan South Korea Relationships

Methodology
200 websites of current members (100 each from South Korea and Japan)
January-February 2006
Sampled according to party strength in respective national legislative assemblies
Features analysis (based on IE Project but modified/expanded for non-election period) of information, communications, and links

Sampling: South Korea 92.6% 277 299 99.9% (100) Total 75% 3 4 1.3 % (1) Opposition Independent 100% 1 1 0.3 % (1) Opposition Kook-min 100% 3 3 1% (1) Opposition Ja-min 80% 8 10 3.3 % (3) Opposition Min-joo 100% 9 9 3 % (3) Opposition Min-no 92.1% 117 127 42.5 % (42) Opposition Han-na-ra 93.8% 136 145 48.5 % (49) Ruling Party Woo-ri Percentage of politicians with websites No. of politicians With websites Total # of seats Ratio/Sample Status Parties

Sampling: Japan 95.6% 459 480 100 % (100) Total 94.7% 18 19 4% (4) Opposition Independents 100% 6 6 1 .3 % (1) Opposition Other minor parties 100% 7 7 1 .5 % (1) Opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) 100% 9 9 1.9 % (2) Opposition Japanese Communist Party (JCP) 96.8% 30 31 6 .5 % (6) Ruling Coalition Member New Komeito (Clean Government Party) (CGP) 100% 112 112 23 .3 % (23) Opposition Democratic Party of Japan and Club of Independents (DPJ) 93.6% 277 296 6 1.7 % (63) Ruling Party Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Percentage of politicians with websites # of politicians with websites Total # of seats Ratio 　 Status Parties

Features analysis (1): Political information
Background (SK)
Photo/image/graphic (J)
Party logo (SK)
Photo collection (J)
Issues position (SK)
Endorsements (SK)
Calendar/events
Recent policy documents (SK)
Newspaper clippings (J)
Publications
Activity reports ( J ) ( SK )
Privacy/terms of use

Background information (SK)

Photograph/graphic (Japan)

Image, link to party, assembly bldgs . (SK)

Photograph album/collection (J)

Issue position/statements (SK)

Endorsements (SK)

Recent policy documents (SK)

Newspaper Clippings (J) (Nagashima Akihisa)

Activity reports (J) (Hajiuda Koichi)

Activity (voting record) (SK)

Features analysis (2): Communications
Join politician’s organization (SK)
Join political party (J)
Donate
Get email from site
Participate in online forum/communication space
Distribute political materials offline
Send links
Obtain e-paraphernalia (SK)
Volunteer or internship opportunities (J)

Join politician’s organization (SK)

Join political party (J)

Obtaining e-paraphernalia (SK)

Volunteer/Internship (J) (Seki Yoshihiro)

Features analysis (3): Linking
Own/other political parties (J)
Politicians (same party) national/local (SK)
Politicians (different party) national/local
Governments (central, local) (SK)
Local assemblies
Election-related govt bodies
National assemblies
Parliamentary committees
Broadcasters
Internet broadcasters
Newspapers
Internet newspapers
Civic/advocacy groups (J)
Wireless sites (J)
Blogs
International bodies
General public/other (J) (SK)

Link and banner to peer politicians (SK)

Link to central government (SK)

Link to own political party (J) (Hirasawa Katsuei)

Link cell phone website (J) (Nishimura Shingo)

Link NGOs/civil society groups (J) (Maruya Kaori)

General Public/Other (Lee Seung Kwon) (Kono Taro)

Results (1): Political information * = sig. p <0.01 32* 93* 21 89* 32* 82* 67* 16* 75 98* 87* 86 100 South Korean politicians (N=100) 13* 69* 27 24* 0* 12* 15* 0* 75 40* 33* 87 93 Japanese politicians (N=100) Privacy or terms of use policies Activity reports Information about publications such as books Newspaper clippings about the politician Policy documents issued within the past month Calendar/List of events Endorsements Issue comparison with other politicians General position on issues Photo collection or album Party logo Portrait/image/photograph of politician Background information Information-provision feature present on site

Results (2): Communications * = sig. p <0.01 20 14 Volunteer or internship opportunities 0 7 Obtain e-paraphernalia 0 9 Send links 2* 59* Distribute political materials offline 17* 99* Participate in an online forum/communications space 23* 75* Get e-mail from the site 11* 93* Donate 8 5 Join politician’s political party 34* 20* Join politician’s organization Japanese politicians (N=100) South Korean politicians (N=100) Communications-oriented features

Results (3a): Linking * = sig. p <0.01 4 11 Parliamentary committees 37* 67* National assemblies 3 11 Election-related government bodies 3 8 Local assemblies 44 60 Local governments 38 52 Central government 0 0 Other politicians in a different party (national level) 0 0 Other politicians in a different party (national level) 12* 0* Other politicians in the same party (local level) 18* 3* Other politicians in the same party (national level) 4 4 Other political parties 70* 89* Own political party Japanese politicians (N=100) South Korean politicians (N=100) Linking strategies

Results (3b): Linking * = sig. p <0.01 28 43 Other 20* 3* General public 7 4 International bodies 20* 57* Blogs 15* 2* Wireless sites 23 37 Civic & advocacy groups 1 9 Internet newspapers 7 9 Newspapers 27* 0* Internet broadcast er s 6 3 Broadcast er s Japanese politicians (N=100) South Korean politicians (N=100) Linking strategies

Conclusion
South Korean politician websites show more involvement between politicians and the public with regard to information and communications features
Japanese politicians have more cross-linkage with other politicians and channel online interest to formalized offline support organizations
Future of permanent e-campaign?

Minimalist top page (Japan) (Ohshima Atsuji)

The end
Thank you for listening, and thank you to our coders
Leslie Tkach-Kawasaki
Email: tkach@japan.email.ne.jp
Han Woo Park
Email: [email_address]
www.hanpark.net
Partially supported by a Korea Research Foundation Grant

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Comparing Political Cultures Through Political Websites

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