A Functional Analysis of 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Debates

Abstract

Political leadersÕ debates are an important and highly visible instances of public argumentation. As such, they merit scholarly attention. This essay applies the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to analyze televised presidential debates from the Ukraine in 2004. Overall, this analysis revealed that acclaims were the most common function, followed by attacks and then defenses. Policy was addressed more often than character in these debates, as expected. The incumbent candidate acclaimed significantly more and attacked less than the challenger. The incumbents used past deeds significantly more often to acclaim -and less to attack -than the challengers. Finally, general goals and ideals were used more as the basis for acclaims than attacks in these debates. Implications of these results are discussed.

Debates Come to the United Kingdom: A Functional Analysis of the 2010 British Prime Minister Election Debates

“…Recently this theory has also been extended to political leaders' debates in other countries: Australia and Canada (Benoit & Hensen, 2007), France and South Korea (Choi & Benoit, 2009), Israel (Benoit & Sheafer, 2006), Taiwan (Benoit, Wen, & Yu, 2007), and the Ukraine (Benoit & Klyukovski, 2006). Results of these studies are generally consistent with analyses of American political debates.…”

YouTube Politics: YouChoose and Leadership Rhetoric During the 2008 Election

“…While some of the candidates specifically mentioned leadership as a skill, others only described the strength of their respective characters. Incidentally, Benoit's functional theory states that personal qualities, leadership ability, and ideals (values or principles) are all subtopics in that candidate's discourse about his or her character (Benoit & Klyukovski, 2006). The methods employed here make assumptions closer to those of Just, Crigler, Alger, Cook, Kern, and West (1996), who state that character is more of a conglomeration constructed of issues, experience, and leadership ability.…”

“…This theory posits, in essence, that "campaign discourse has only three functions … acclaims, or positive statements; attacks, or negative statements; and defenses, or refutations of attacks" (Benoit et al, 2005, p. 361). Functional theory has been studied in diverse contexts such as press releases, debates, and television spots (Benoit & Klyukovski, 2006;Cho & Benoit, 2006;Stein, 2005). Significantly, the theory also states that news coverage of campaigns will specifically address two topics: the policies (or "issues") and character (or "image") of the candidates (Benoit et al, 2005, p. 361).…”

Presidential Debates and the Quality of Democracy. An Empirical Analysis of Standards in the Mexican Debates of 2012

“…De acuerdo a ejercicios previos, las unidades se conformaron con base en los temas u ocurrencias que expresan una idea coherente, definidos aquéllos como 'una aserción sobre un tópico'; se trata de un argumento acerca de candidatos o partidos, que se hace manifiesto mediante una sola frase o varios enunciados (Benoit y Brazeal, 2002;Benoit y Klyukovski, 2006;Benoit y Sheafer, 2006). La división de los temas por unidades de esta naturaleza resultó en 518 argumentos en ambos debates.…”

“…Nuestro análisis de los debates del 2012 no coincide con la investigación previa realizada desde la perspectiva de análisis del discurso, que caracterizaba a los eventos del 2006 como conflictivos (Valbuena 2006;Flores Treviño e Infante, 2010;Chihu, 2009); no obstante, refrenda los hallazgos que ejecutan la metodología aquí expuesta (Téllez et al 2010;Echeverria, 2008) respecto a la relativa 'sustancia' de los debates, y coincide con diversas investigaciones en el ámbito internacional en cuanto a la presencia de aclamaciones en lugar de ataques y el predominio de temas en lugar de aspectos de imagen (Benoit y Klyukovski, 2006;Benoit y Sheafer, 2006;Kim, et al, 2008).…”