This study investigated the underlying policy direction encapsulated in the presidential inaugural addresses delivered by the 13 presidents who have led Korea since its establishment, focusing on those who assumed office in their 20s. The study applie...
This study investigated the underlying policy direction encapsulated in the presidential inaugural addresses delivered by the 13 presidents who have led Korea since its establishment, focusing on those who assumed office in their 20s. The study applied various text analysis techniques, including Python programming-based Term Frequency (TF) and Term Frequency — Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) analysis, word network analysis, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling to analyze the complete set of inaugural addresses. The study results indicated that the presidential speeches emphasized national and historical identity, the economy, culture, unification, and people’s everyday lives. Regarding policy direction, the LDA topic modeling analysis revealed four primary themes: the global economy and national development, liberal democracy and reform, national identity and politics, and citizen’s life and welfare. These policy orientations are derived from the desires and demands of the citizens, highlighting their importance in shaping government policies. Therefore, research should apply these findings to evaluate the policy performance of past administrations to facilitate subsequent studies.