Word Cloud Analysis of Inaugural Speeches

Posted by JOE WINDISH, Technology Editor in Politics.
Jan 21st, 2009 | 3 responses

ReadWriteWeb ran the full text of Obama’s inaugural address through the tag cloud generator Wordle.net. Then went on to do Bush, Clinton, Reagan and Lincoln. Fascinating.

Susan Mernit opines:

Bush’s speech seemed to be addressed to the  world stage and had much abstract language with powerful concepts attached: freedom, liberty, America, country.

Obama’s speech is addressed to the American people and has much more change and inclusive language: keywords are people, common, change, new, spirit.

Bush’s language was imperial (we know that that played out), Obama’s language is inspiring.

3 Responses to “Word Cloud Analysis of Inaugural Speeches”

1. Marlowecan says:

   January 21, 2009 at 10:28 am

   I tend to be sceptical of “objective” technological analyses which really mask partisan biases.

   For example, why are Obama's, Regan's and Lincoln's word clouds all with bright, attractive primary colours…while Bush's is entirely drab green and blue.
   Why, also, the choice of different fonts?

   Surely, using identical colours and fonts would lend to better analyses.

   Susan Mernit's view of the clouds reflects said biases. “Bush's language was imperial” IMPERIAL?

   The biggest single word – “Freedom” – is massive…the second biggest word in the cloud is – “liberty”.
   I also note the prominence of “cause”, “rights” and “human”

   This is “imperial” language?

   As Hamlet opined, just “Words, words, words”
2. Marlowecan says:

   January 21, 2009 at 10:35 am

   Ah, having looked at Wordle.net, I see that “The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. “

   Thus, it is the choice of the users at ReadWriteWeb to represent Bush's words in a drab colour scheme, in contrast to that of the other presidents.
   Perhaps they were daunted by the size of “Freedom” in Bush's cloud . . . and tried to cut him down to size?

   Thus, a mea culpa on my part: It is not the technological tool . . . but the use to which it was put . . . that should be in question.
3. Pennsylvania » Processing the Inauguration in the Cloud says:

   January 21, 2009 at 2:19 pm

   [...] It would be really interesting to compare the tag clouds of different inaugural addresses. Here is an example. The New York Times created tag clouds for all the inaugural addresses going back to President [...]