Presidential Debates Meets Match with Semantic Analysis
December 10, 2012
Literary analysis meets big data analytics in the context of US politics. It’s a wild world we live in, but an important press release published by the Italian firm Expert System discussed the results of analysis on the language of the US presidential debates. “Obama Vs. Romney on Language: The Three Debates” breaks down the rhetoric into information on most used words and more.
Semantic and linguistic analysis was conducted by Expert System using the Cogito semantic platform to find that Romney used literally more words than Obama amounting to 14% percent more. As for word choice, Romney went for concepts with taxes, plans, programs, job, and America featured prominently. Obama’s most frequently used concept words were business and labor, but he was most often heard uttering the action verbs of do and make.
The article quoted Luca Scagliarini, VP Strategy & Business Development, Expert System:
“The upcoming elections in the U.S. have resulted in some very interesting analysis. This analysis focused only on the topics and concepts mentioned by the candidates, and while it is by no means a predictor, we believe that the semantic analysis of content will help anyone better understand and deal more effectively with any type of information.”
Obviously there would be no predictive value to this system. Knowing which words were mentioned more often than others by each candidate simply helps to inform voters about rhetoric, the impact of word choices and any potential values that could be extrapolated from this information.
Megan Feil, December 10, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
