DICTION and the Study of American Politics

A powerful tool for content analysis, DICTION allows scholars to illuminate the ideas, perspectives, and linguistic tendencies of a wide variety of political actors. At its best, a tool like DICTION allows scholars not just to describe the features of political language, but also to analyze the causes and the consequences those features in ways that advance our understanding political communication more broadly. Effective analysis involves helping academic audiences understand what the measures being used mean, how the results relate to broader theoretical constructs, and the extent to which findings reveal something important about the political world. This involves exploring both the causes and the consequences of linguistic choices, including by attending closely to how those texts are received by their intended audiences. In this chapter, the authors review ways in which DICTION has been used and might be used to better understand the role of political leadership, the meaning of democracy, and the effects of political language on the political behavior of ordinary citizens.

Communicating Nation Brands through Mass and Social Media

Nation branding efforts are the means through which many countries attempt to influence how foreign publics perceive them. However, in a media landscape that now includes not only traditional one-way media but also two-way social platforms, countries undertaking these efforts are presented with a series of new challenges. This environment makes it more difficult to manage the issues associated with a nation brand, challenges countries to better communicate their advantages, and allows the public to create its own, potentially competing, messages about a country. Building on previous work on nation and destination branding, this chapter discusses the changing media environment in which nation-branding efforts are taking place, and—through a combination of DICTION®-assisted, manual, and qualitative content analyses—provides evidence of the new media landscape in which nation branding is taking place. The challenges and opportunities created by this new context are detailed, and potential avenues for further research are discussed.

Digital Narratives and the Genealogy of a Hybrid Genre

From a simple list of links annotated and maintained by a small blog community of Internet groupies to elaborated content today, blogs have exploded into a rich gamut of subgenres. Most approaches that pioneered internet communication research are in fact non-empirical and non-linguistic. Two major blog types appear to have emerged, personal blogs and thematic blogs, with their corresponding already-established subgenres of filter blogs, k-logs, and corporate blogs as well as other emerging hybrid subgenres such as that of expat blogs. This chapter explores the language of high-impact blogs, testing a new methodology to establish blog genealogy in the context of online genre hybridity. Language data are collected using a major blog searching engine (Technorati) that currently indexes more than a million blogs. Individual language scores, which are used to calculate DICTION’s sub variables, are concatenated to outline the overall tone and theme of the blog posts that can be classified accordingly. The findings are correlated with existing blog classifications to propose a Diction-based methodology for genre analysis.

How President Obama Promoted Conflict Reconciliation and Diplomacy

The American president is expected to demonstrate strong, respected political leadership at home and abroad. As a proposal for achieving more effective global governance, the 2008 Obama presidential campaign portrayed an optimistic appeal that U.S. interests should be redirected toward greater cooperation and inclusivity by engaging adversaries in conflict resolution processes. Did Barack Obama succeed in manifesting his campaign identity as a peacemaker during his first term in office? This question is examined through a content analysis of selected speeches of wide-audience appeal that illustrate his efforts to extend the olive branch in the context of the meaning of reconciliation. The net assessment is that Obama’s campaign image was transferred into the presidency, in particular the continuation of a high level of optimism expressed in his public speeches, in spite of political crises facing his administration.

Party Rhetoric in Federal Budget Communications

This chapter explores differences in federal budget communication associated with the development and passage of the Federal Budget Resolution for Fiscal Years 1999, 2000, and 2001. While theory suggests that party-based differences within budget communication exist, empirical studies have not yet explored the full extent of these differences. The goal of this research is to illustrate the significant party-based differences in the goals and values communicated by the actors within the federal budget process. These findings inform our understanding of how actors within this key governing process communicate. This understanding will better equip public administrators to engage others in dialogue and debate that facilitates agreement and understanding.

Scientific Abstraction in Presidential Debates

This chapter takes a Cultural Indicators approach to link a large-scale increase in IQ, known as the Flynn Effect, to a specific cultural product, televised presidential debates. James R. Flynn has shown that IQs of persons living in industrialized societies have increased steadily over the past century, averaging a three-point gain per decade. Flynn suggests that the IQ gains are attributable to an increasingly conceptually complex social environment. According to Flynn, an important cause of this enriched cognitive world is the increasing permeation of scientific categories into cultural products such as literature, news, and even video games. The authors test whether the use of abstract scientific terms and the employment of such terms in causal and logical analysis has increased over time in presidential debates. No evidence that the discourse in these debates has become scientifically richer is found, and it is suggested that scientific discourse with respect to economics has actually declined.

DICTION as a Tool for Studying the Mass Media

This chapter offers a systematic assessment of DICTION’s ability to address a wide range of media content. Each of the media-related works in this volume reflects a unique mix of communication inputs, and DICTION proves itself able to generate valid and reliable insights on a diverse range of material. In addition, the chapter focuses on a series of challenges (e.g., Message Tailoring, Hypertext, Interactivity) and opportunities (e.g., big data) for DICTION in relation to the study of media content. The program and the researchers who utilize it need to continue to evolve with the changing media landscape in order to generate practical knowledge that is relevant to improving communication.

Charismatic and Affective Rhetoric in a Presidential Campaign

Although prior research demonstrates that charisma and rhetoric are two determinants of voting behavior, few studies have examined the effects of charismatic rhetoric and affect as they pertain to the outcomes of presidential elections. Using DICTION software for content analysis, 432 pre-convention speeches from the 2008 presidential election were analyzed to explore the effects that charismatic rhetoric and affect have on presidential candidates’ success. Results indicate that there were more similarities than differences in the charismatic and affect-laden rhetoric of successful and unsuccessful presidential candidates in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Overall, the results demonstrate that both successful and unsuccessful presidential candidates used charismatic rhetoric and emotional language to motivate their followers in the 2008 presidential election.

Organizational Identity in Nonprofit Communication about Disability

This chapter describes the research process used to uncover and describe the organizational identities of ten nonprofit organizations that serve persons with disabilities. Identities were measured by examining the values used in a variety of marketing and public relations materials. This chapter 1) describes how DICTION was selected as a viable option for data analysis, 2) reveals the process of augmenting and building upon a previously tested values instrument with custom dictionaries, and 3) explains how the results were interpreted and used to describe the organizational identities of ten nonprofit organizations. The challenges of data collection and analysis are discussed. Future directions for values-based research are proposed. Discussion relates the results to the challenges inherent in disability-related communication.

Content Analysis as Rhetorical EEG of the Presidency

Electroencephalography (EEG) tracks voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current flows within the neurons of the brain by recording electrical activity along the scalp to reveal what regions of the brain are involved in different mental processes. This chapter demonstrates how DICTION can be used to measure the fluctuations in the rhetoric in drafts of presidential speeches as they move through the White House speech drafting and review process. This chapter incorporates rhetorical analysis of 494 drafts of 67 presidential speeches gathered from the archives of administrations from Franklin Roosevelt to George H.W. Bush. Like the EEG, looking at the fluctuations in rhetorical scores may not reveal exactly what the thoughts are in the process, but it can reveal how a speech’s language changes over the course of the speechwriting process and help us unravel the mysteries of the inner-workings of this vital institution.