So I’ve been watching the third night of the Republican National Convention, and did a little wordleing with the text, as prepared, of two speeches. The first, given by Hillary Clinton, at the Democratic National Convention in August, and the second, given by Mitt Romney this evening. I chose those two speeches because those two individuals were the also-rans, or losers, of the 2008 primary election.

Click on the pictures for a larger view.

Some observations:

One speech referenced “America” most frequently; the other referenced government most often. Just to pick on the GOP for a moment, for a party that espouses limited government as a main plank in the platform, one of their main speeches leaned on the term “government” as a rhetorical crutch in a major, public and national forum.

Liberal was mentioned more than conservative, and as often as government, in a speech by a self-proclaimed conservative.

Clinton’s speech used “Barack” and “Obama” frequently, which mirrors that campaign’s strategy of tending to rely on Obama, the person as opposed to Obama, the font of policy.

COM students: what are your observations about these two graphics?

Crossposted at karakane.net

Have you seen Wordle? This clever web site makes visual representations of words based on their frequency, given a block of text or a web site address.

Observe:

Michelle Obama’s speech to the Democratic National Convention, Denver, Colorado, August 2008.

As the political season heats up, take some time to see - through artfully designed word maps - what candidates are saying when they speak.

Content analysis, a field under which an application like this would fall, was at one time a favorite research area of mine, and one that I would love to talk to students about.

Crossposted at karakane.net

With technology growing as fast as it has, people have been able to get their daily news through the internet rather than reading it in the newspaper.

What makes the internet better than a newspaper is the fact that online article can be updated at any time during a day. if a story breaks, you don’t have to wait until the next morning to get the news as you do with a newspaper. Most people nowadays are impatient and don’t want to wait a whole day to read about the breaking news that happened yesterday. They would rather know right away.

If I want to read the Boston Globe, I used to have to have it sent to me as a special delivery or go to Boston to get it. Now, everyone has a website and the articles are available on the internet. You can read any newspaper from any city in the United States. This wasn’t available before the internet. The more people use the internet the less they need newspapers or magazines.

Print journalism isn’t going to die anytime soon but the readership will slowly deteriorate. I may not be alive to see the newspaper industry dead but I may be around to see it on life support.

danah boyd has written a blog entry about the economics and logistics of academic publishing. For anyone looking for a career in academics, her piece gives a good overview of the trends in scholarship and publishing.

If you’ve got a few minutes, check out the content on How Stuff Works: Communication Channel. Though slanted more towards the technological side of communication, its articles on emerging technologies and communication devices are first-rate. Knowing what terms like FoIP and WiFi mean could give you an edge when dealing with your next job interview.

Microsoft is buying Yahoo , or are they? If you google search “Microsoft buys yahoo” you’ll get a whole lot of blog posts about the issue. (Go do it, read some and come back here. Yes, now.) Yahoo is reviewing the bid, and the Justice Department is also interested at looking into it.

Many of you in Com 300 were asking questions about regulation in the media. One regulation issue is who owns who. What are the implications for ownership, how does that affect what is/isn’t presented, and what is best for the society? Anyone have any thoughts?

Cross posted on my own blog, here. (Yes, I have a blog, do you?)

-Sarah Whitehead

Let’s face it: Cell phones can be annoying. I always hated when my one friend would receive and answer text messages while talking to me. The conversation would come to a screeching halt, she’d lose her train of thought and I didn’t feel like it matter that I was there in person, since the person texting her always got her immediate and full attention.

It can also be annoying when people are chatting in every location: bathrooms (ew, guys, really think about that), the grocery store, the gym…But what gets me the most is that cell phones are constantly ringing (or buzzing if it’s on vibrate). Can’t you show some respect in class, meeting with people or other situations?

Well apparently a local judge had enough. When a cell phone starting ringing in his court room and no one would own up to it he sent everyone to jail. Yup, all 46 people.

read about it here and tell me what you think!
~Sarah Whitehead