Will the Prosody Win Olympic Votes?

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session and Reception
  In Interactive Paper Session: Information Systems Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Tokyo will host the Olympics in 2020 after emerging the favourite over Madrid and Istanbul. The speeches given by each country’s representative were a key factor in being selected by the Olympic Committee. Undoubtedly, the speech of the Mayor of Madrid, Ana Botella, was the most discussed due to her insecurities in the domain of English language. In this sense, Botella’s speech illustrates the importance of prosody in public speaking since it can affect the speaker’s credibility. Therefore, the aim of this study is to understand the influence of prosody in listeners’ perceptions of politicians’ credibility. In developing this understanding, we conducted an acoustic analysis to measure the audience’s perception of credibility. From this analysis, we expect to obtain the principles of a politicians’ public speaking prosody model. The final results may add value to prosody as an important aspect used by politicians in public speeches to persuade the audience.

Authors

• Emma Rodero, Universitat Pompeu Fabra/ Institute for Communication Research, Indiana University

• Lluis Mas, Pompeu Fabra University

• María Blanco, Pontificia University