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Software Spots Spin In Political Speeches
T.S. Ackerman writes "According to an article in NewScientist Tech, there is now software that can identify the amount of spin in a politician or candidate's speech. From the article, 'Blink and you would have missed it. The expression of disgust on former US president Bill Clinton's face during his speech to the Democratic National Convention as he says "Obama" lasts for just a fraction of a second. But to Paul Ekman it was glaringly obvious. "Given that he probably feels jilted that his wife Hillary didn't get the nomination, I would have to say that the entire speech was actually given very gracefully," says Ekman, who has studied people's facial expressions and how they relate to what they are thinking for over 40 years.' The article goes on to analyze the amount of spin in each of the candidates running for president, and the results are that Obama spins the most."
Even though I'm a Republican, I have to concede that Obama is one of the most gifted speakers to come along for quite some time. He's an absolutely magnetic speaker and a great advocate for that which he believes, and when I watch him, I almost have to smack myself to snap out of it. I can't stand the guy's politics, but I am proud that he's an American.
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"Spin" is just euphemism for 'lying' and/or 'exaggeration'. As someone who was once an avid poker player, I can tell you that everyone has little 'tells'. See the movie "Maverick" for information about tells. Even the best of the best bullshitters have tells. Another of Bill Clinton's tells is that he bites his lower lip when he's about to lie.
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Perhaps it was intended to mock the ignorance that so many other nations say
the American public suffers from in regards to political events in other countries.
For something intelligent and entertaining, find The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from
last Friday, where they were reporting on McCain's acceptance speech. They intercut
sentences from it with sentences from Bush's acceptance speech eight years earlier.
Again and again and again they were virtually identical! Anyone got that YouTube link?
You've got to see it to believe it; it was absolutely astounding to watch. (Excellent
work, Daily Show!)
I wish the idiot from New Scientist was a student of mine so I could flunk him. I recommend
against bothering to read the, uh, "fine" article.
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because the "movement" won't be in office. The politician will.
"Yes we can" is a crap soundbite that sways people who listen to crap soundbites, and it also has the advantage of allowing every (potential) voter to fill in their own definition of what "we" can do, while sticking the polit. with zero accountability.
"I won't raise your taxes", or "I won't attempt to further restrict the right to bear arms" would be widely regarded as a campaign promise, and would be damaging if broken.
If you say nothing of substance, it's harder to be accused of lying.
This doesn't necessarily mean any use of "we" is bad, but your chosen examples are vastly different statements.
You should read up on Ekman. The guy is one of the top authorities on the subject. He has written a few books. Read one or two and check what his claims really are and how much substance and research he can put behind them.
In short: He doesn't claim he can read thoughts, he claims that emotions show up on your face. He also claims to have identified a short list of universal (world-wide, culture-independent) expressions that belong to specific emotions. He's travelled pretty much everywhere on the globe, from western society to primitive jungle tribes and made many thousands of photographs showing those expressions. And yes, the books describe in detail how the emotions were roused so they could be reasonably sure they got the proper one.
Like all mainstream media, the article simplifies things quite a lot. That doesn't mean the science behind it isn't correct.
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It should also be noted that writers are generally trained not to use the word "I" and "you", the latter of which they seem to account as meaning there is less spin. The reality is that someone using the word "I" frequently in a speech in place of "we" is more likely to either be on the defensive or not very good at sticking to the speech (as they stated, substituting one pronoun for another is commonly subconscious, but they didn't mention that a well-trained speaker will suppress the urge).
All this really seems to show is that Obama and Palin are better speakers than McCain and Clinton, and that McCain is by far the worst of them. On the other hand, at least McCain usually has the sense to pause when he's speaking to collect his thoughts (and actually manages to do so), as opposed to Bush, who just stumbles and ends up with gibberish. Or maybe McCain just has better people running the teleprompters or tries to keep his speech-writers closer to his internalized message so he can go off-script without going off-message.
I thought the analysis from the speech and facial recognition people was a little more credible than the analysis based on the words being used. People subconsciously track this stuff much more closely than the actual words, and are very adept at it (those most adept at it end up being very good con-artists or can do quite a bit to help people).
Unfortunately, when looking at speeches to determine whether people are saying things they actually believe, you depend highly on what they look like the rest of the time they're giving speeches. Bill Clinton has been giving speeches in the national public eye for over 16 years, so many people can pick up on simple things that aren't quite right when he's giving a speech. There are also a handful of things that people are trained not to do when giving a speech that work well when people actually follow them well, such as the use of words and not pointing your finger at the audience (see Clinton's denial of the affair with Lewinsky; politicians that have a hard time with this one often will point with their whole hand or two fingers, see many of George H. W. Bush's speeches).
In some ways this makes people like George W. Bush and McCain harder to read, because they give speeches as if they have never really been trained or managed to learn to give speeches in the first place. One has to wonder if these are patterns that they have groomed in themselves.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
The algorithm does seem to consist primarily of a bunch of intuitions that David Skillicorn has had about what textual attributes correlate with spin.
And I'll note here that Skillicorn is a computer scientist, not a cognitive scientist. If we're just talking about his intuitions, then I'm not seeing why I should trust his over anybody else's.
He seems to hang a lot on Obama's use of "we" instead of "I". It seems to me that heavy use of "we" is exactly how community organizers would talk. Not because they're spinning, but because they're trained to generate collective action.
And heck, that's what I like about him. After 9/11, a great national tragedy, I wanted to serve, to help, but George Bush told me to go shopping. It was a bit of a letdown. This election, I'm really excited that both McCain and Obama truly believe in public service. But I think Obama's much better at getting people to actually do it.
He seems to hang a lot on Obama's use of "we" instead of "I". It seems to me that heavy use of "we" is exactly how community organizers would talk. Not because they're spinning, but because they're trained to generate collective action.
It's interesting you think of it like that. I tend to associate heavy use of "we" with corporate speak, where rather than generate collective action, the speaker is attempting to impress collective responsibility for some action.
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