MAT-133: 7-2 FINAL PROJECT

Research Study Report

MAT-133- Intro to Statistical Analysis

7-2 Final Project- Research Study Report

The study I decided to focus on for the final project was “Whipping It Up! An Analysis of Audience

Responses to Political Rhetoric in Speeches From the 2012 American Presidential Elections.” It is an article

that was posted in 2015, in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology by authors Peter Bull and Karolis

Miskinis. It is "an analysis that was conducted of rhetorical devices (figurative language) utilized to invite

affiliative audience responses in 11 speeches from both the Democrat and the Republication parties, delivered

by the two principal candidates in the 2012 American presidential election. “Particular attention was paid to

their rhetorical techniques, to audience responses, and to the relationship of these techniques to electoral

success." (Bull & Miskinis. 2015) Because "oratory has always played an important role in politics, politicians

rely on a variety of rhetorical techniques to evoke affiliative responses from their audiences, thereby reinforcing

their image as popular and charismatic leaders." (Bull & Miskinis. 2015)

The two participants being studied were candidates, Barrack Obama (Dem) and Mitt Romney (Rep).

Included as well in the study are the audiences at the public meetings where the candidates gave campaigning

speeches in 2012. Those audiences were mixed with the politically unaffiliated public, as well as supporters of

the two candidates. The demographics where the 10 speeches that were given at informal locations (stadiums,

parks, fields, etc.), held in the following swing states: Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and Iowa.

There is also an 11th speech given by Mitt Romney in Texas that was included, only because it contains

examples of booing that can be used for comparison to the other samples of booing in other aforementioned

speeches.

Data from other studies, one of “an analysis of all the 476 speeches broadcast from the 1981 British

Conservative, Labor, and Liberal Party conferences,” and a 2011 study conducted by Bull and Feldman, of 36

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speeches delivered in Japan 2005 & 38 other speeches in 2009, all from Japan’s general elections, included for

comparison research and result data.

There are three main hypotheses; Hypothesis 1: “Rhetorical devices used to invite affiliative audience

responses will be similar to those used in the United Kingdom and differ from Japan.” Hypothesis 2: “Audience

responses in the United States will show much greater variability than either the United Kingdom or Japan.”

Hypothesis 3: “Affiliative response rates will be predictive of electoral success.” (Bull & Miskinis. 2015)

To understand as to what extent these questions/hypotheses are significant, you have to understand the

concept of the methods used to try to answer the hypotheses; a rhetorical device is better explained as figurative

language that “uses words in a certain way to convey meaning or to persuade. It can also be a technique used to

evoke emotions within the reader or an audience.” The questions are important for future cross-cultural research

on audience reactions to political speeches, to be able to identify distinction between implicit and explicit

rhetorical devices. This was interestingly the first study wherein researchers demonstrated that there is a

significant difference between audience response rates, using rhetorical devices, and the relationship to electoral

success.

The article included a total of 4 simple tables of data figures throughout the article that were void of any

deceptive graphing techniques or distracting content, just tables that displayed the data being reported.

Although, after looking at the representation of the tables, I felt that visually, bar graphs would have made the

data easier to understand the audience reactions, per rhetorical device and per country/cultures. The tables could

have even been paired or all together replaced with pie charts, either choice would have been a conceptual

upgrade for the reader.

The research methodology used to test the hypotheses was to analyze the results from the U.K. and

Japan cross cultural studies of the politicians and the audience responses and then to incorporate yet

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another/third culture (the US) into the study, to possibly highlight the influential distinction between collectivist

an individualist culture, pertaining to politics. The hypothesis that received the strongest support was the results

showing that the rhetorical devices used to invite affiliative responses in the American speeches, were similar to

those used in the UK speeches but both differed from those used in the Japan speeches. The results also

revealed that the rhetorical devices used by both Obama and Romney were remarkably similar (r = + 0.90),

which suggests that there is a “distinctive cross-party style of American speech making.” (Bull & Miskinis.

2015) Researchers also found that two of the seven rhetorical devices that were used in the U.K. and were

mostly associated with the collective applause responses (46%) were associated to Obama’s (33%) and

Romney’s (35%) affiliative responses. Those findings, along with results from both of Japan’s political

speeches, the 2005 data of “the explicit invitations used, that got the most applause incidents (68%) and of all

affiliative audience responses, (71.2%)” confirmed the first hypothesis.

The outcome for the second hypothesis was “strongly supported with regard to both collective and

individual responses,” with data that shows that “the audiences in America, have a greater variety of collective

responses than either Japan or the U.K.” (Bull & Miskinis. 2015) American audiences included chanting,

booing, cheering, applause and laughter along with isolated applause and uninvited individual remarks that were

expressing support and/or encouragement to the candidate throughout the speeches. These types of individual

responses were not present in the Japanese audiences (0.0%) because all responses were collective, consistent

with the culture in Japan. Even though those responses did occur in the U.K. speeches, isolated applause was

found to be only 4.7% of the total collective and isolated applause incidents.

Lastly, the outcome to the third hypothesis that in the United States, “affiliative response rates will be

predictive of electoral success was confirmed by the results, that show a strong, positive correlation with the

percentage of American votes cast (r = 0.67 p = 0.17, Pearson’s one-tailed).” (Bull & Miskinis. 2015) Based on

the reported data from previous, similar studies and the results from the researchers’ (of this article) hypotheses

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testing, I feel the outcomes led to conclusions that are valid and supported by significant amount of data and

research that spanned over 29 years and 3 countries.

America is an individualist society and the significant differences between the U.S, the U.K and the

Japanese audience variabilities is noticeably supported by the observed audience behavior data. Primarily,

American speeches are exemplified by implicit response invitations, because the American culture allows

audience members far more “freedom of action” (Bull & Miskinis. 2015) relating to whether they choose to

respond or not, which is mainly why and how the American audiences are noticeably different from the

audiences in both, the U.K. and Japan

In contrast, the correlation in the Japanese speeches of the explicit rhetorical devices used and the

affiliative audience responses may not mean an electoral success, instead it may be nothing more than the

conformity of a culture’s social norms in a collective society. In Japan, the speeches are exemplified by explicit

invitations and the audiences customarily responded together.

I wanted to clarify, for the unknowing reader, just a couple of informative points about the difference in

cultures that relate to politics because, to understand as to why these political differences are significant, you

have to first understand the cultural significance in the different societies.

i. Japan and the United Kingdom are collective societies, whereas, America is an individualist society, with a

political system that votes IN the President, not just decided by popular vote.

ii. In Japan’s collective society, political speeches are formal and attended only by the supporters of the candidate

(and their political groups) that is speaking.

iii. In the United Kingdom’s British culture, political speeches are not based on public meetings, but instead on the

annual political conferences held in the autumn. The political speeches are televised to the nation, but the

restricted audiences consist of just party members and the press.

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iv. There is an ancient Japanese proverb that says, “The nail that stands out, gets pounded down.” A stark contrast

from the individualist society in the United States, where a greater respect for the individualism is more valuable

than the elevated social costs of deviating from the social norms and what is expected of the masses, collectively.

Even though I was not surprised that the results concluded that Americans are more reactionary and

vocal, from the onset of this project, I did find the whole concept of how and why rhetorical devices (“clap-

traps”) are being used, to be interesting to say the least.

Materials used were transcripts of the 11 speeches that were downloaded from official campaign

websites and checked against delivery from the video recordings to make sure that there is an accurate, verbatim

record. Also prior to the main study, video-recordings of each politician’s speech were analyzed, using

techniques that are specifically designed to test the validity of the procedure for coding audience responses.

From what I can tell, upon evaluating the research methods, materials gathered, etc.; the researchers did

employ proper sampling in their research design. In the previous studies (Bull & Feldman, 2011) of audience

responses, they had been categorized by only applause, cheering and laughter, but in this particular study, three

new categories were added that included chanting and affiliative booing, along with disaffiliated booing. I truly

believe that the methodology used was sound because the researchers “micro-analyzed” the data, tested their

theories and ultimately confirmed the previously stated hypotheses. There is one noted feature worth

mentioning, that there is a noticeably, separate distinction reserved for Americans, it was the “phenomenon of

booing.” The booing was not present in any of the Japanese speeches (74), nor was booing noted in any of the

analyzed U.K. speeches. Therefore, whatever questions might arise based on the obtained results, future

research suggesting that the political composition of the audience is an important feature that should be

considered. The data collected in this study could be instrumental in estimating and/or identifying statistical

relationships between audience responses, response rates and electoral successes. “The cross-cultural

perspective adopted in this study has provided interesting insights into the role of political rhetoric in speaker–

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audience interaction, which arguably may be usefully conceptualized in terms of broader cross-cultural

differences between collectivist and individualist societies. “(Bull & Miskinis. 2015)

References

Bull, P., Feldman, O. (2011). Invitations to affiliative audience responses in Japanese political speeches.

Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 30, 158-176. https://journals-sagepub-

com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/0261927X10397151

Bull, P., & Miskinis, K. (2015). Whipping It Up! An Analysis of Audience Responses to Political Rhetoric in

Speeches From the 2012 American Presidential Elections. Journal of Language and Social Psychology,

34(5), 521–538. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X14564466