• Survey Research
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.31-54
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• 2007

This paper examined the electoral polling methodologies such as sampling method, sampling frame and the classification of the don't-know responses. Quota sampling method seemed to be one of the major factors for the declining trust in the poll results. We suggested that new procedures for random sampling as well as the bad number screening procedures for RDD selection of phone numbers need to be developed. Also we reviewed how the KBS used the polls in defining voters' agenda and in communicating the public agenda to the candidates. In Korea, rates for the polls were based mainly on the number of interviews completed. It seemed to keep the polling companies from tim new and more time-demanding polling methods. Also various utilization of the polls are limited by the tendency to keep the questionnaire short.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.45
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• pp.187-219
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• 2009

Under the pressure of the selection of topics and the presentation rules of mass media, politics in media society increasingly resort to professionalized forms of theatrical staging as a means of self-portrayal. Although these staging methods are not contradictory to what is actually going on in politics, they strongly advantage the tendency to focus exclusively on the staging of an event. Through their competition for public attention, politicians have been developing sophistication regarding placement and staging of events as well as regarding factual information. In the process of this transformation, politics that are issue-related and based on binding decisions are being gradually transformed into symbolic politics. Moreover, through their appearance on TV, politicians first of all need to possess presentational skills which are not necessarily related to their political achievements. Still, presentational skills decide over the success in politics of those politicians. The reason is that a politician who possesses presentational skills is still being perceived as being successful even if his political achievements notedly lag behind. On the other hand, political achievements are being underrated if a politician lacks the talent to present himself in front of the media. “The staging of politics, “politainment”, on the stage of mass media is evolving into a key structure which is responsible for a new coinage of politics in all different kinds of dimensions: the selection of staff, the role of action programs and their impact for the legitimation of political acting, even in relation to therole of pivotal political institutions such as parties and parliaments in the political process. The TV debates during the Bundestag elections of the year 2002 and 2005 are being analyzed and judged as “staging of politics”(politainment). Self-dramatization in media society concerning media discourses about politics and political self-portrayal has become a basic principle of political communication. Self-dramatization is a vital challenge for adequate political communication and content-based orientation in our present media democracies.