Transcript Slide 1 - Academic Csuohio - Cleveland State University

General Inquirer
Rachel Campbell, Shawna Jackson, Lisa Tselebidis
General Inquirer: Basics
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Created by Philip Stone in the 1960s
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Provides a word count
Uses the Harvard IV-4 dictionary and Lasswell dictionary
content analysis categories
A total of 182 dictionary categories
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Homepage: http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~inquirer/
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~inquirer/homecat.htm
Five categories based on social cognition work of Semin
and Fiedler
User can also create customized dictionaries
General Inquirer: Basics
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Limited version can be found at:
http://www.webuse.umd.edu:9090/
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Full version can be obtained through Dr. Neuendorf or
found in the CATI lab for Cleveland State University
students
General Inquirer: Harvard IV-4 categories Examples
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Reflect Charles Osgood’s semantic differential findings
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Pstv – 1045 positive words
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Basic language universals
Subset of 557 words are tagged Affil – indicates affiliation or
supportiveness
Ngtv – 1160 negative words
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Subset of 833 words are tagged Hostile – indicates attitude or
concern with hostility and aggressiveness
General Inquirer: Harvard IV-4 categories
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Strong – 1902 words implying strength
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Subset of 689 words tagged Power – indicate concern with
power, control, or authority
Weak – 755 words implying weakness
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Subset of 284 words tagged Submit – indicate submission,
dependence, vulnerability, withdrawal
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Active – 2045 words implying active orientation
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Passive – 911 words indicating passive orientation
General Inquirer: Lasswell value dictionaries
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Four deference domains: power, rectitude, respect, affiliation
Four welfare domains: wealth, well-being, enlightenment, skill
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Example of Power:
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PowGain = Power Gain, 65 words about power increasing
PowLoss = Power Loss, 109 words of power decreasing
PowEnds = Power Ends, 30 words about the goals of the
power process
PowAren = Power Arenas, 53 referring to political places and
environments (not nation-states)
General Inquirer: Purpose
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Purpose: Analyze content of three different reports on
the Republican primary debate from September 22, 2011
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CNN (national)
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Cleveland Plain Dealer (local)
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San Jose Mercury News (local)
General Inquirer: Instructions
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Before we get started…
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Input
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Convert all of your articles in to .txt files
Place all .txt files in a folder called “testdir”, and save it to the General
Inquirer folder
Output
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Create a blank excel sheet titled Output.xls and save it to the
General Inquirer folder
General Inquirer: Instructions
Main screen
General Inquirer: Instructions - Input
 Type “testdir”
in the Input field if it not already there
General Inquirer: Instructions - Output
Click
Note:
Browse and locate the output.xls file
no changes are made to the Dictionary field.
General Inquirer: Instructions - Run
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Once your Input and Output are set, click Run.
General Inquirer: Instructions – Results
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Relocate the Output.xls file and click open
General Inquirer: Instructions – Results
– Tags (example shows one case only)
General Inquirer: Instructions – Results
- Tags
Word Tags for GOP debate coverage
160
140
120
100
80
CNN
PD
MercuryNews
60
40
20
Po
s
Ne itiv
ga
ti v
Ps
tv
Af
fil
Ng
Ho tv
st
i
St le
ro
n
Po g
we
r
W
ea
Su k
bm
Ac it
ti
Pa ve
ss
ive
0
MercuryNews
CNN
General Inquirer: Instructions – Results
- Tags
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The news articles used mostly strong and active words
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Weak and submissive words were rarely used
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Overall, results are what one would expect of a candidate
in a debate
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He or she will want to appear strong and capable with
faith in his or her ideals
General Inquirer: Instructions – Word
Count
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Use the same process as Tags, but make sure the Words
option is selected
General Inquirer: Instructions – Results
- Word Count
General Inquirer: Instructions – Results
- Word Count
The
most used words relevant to the debate were:
candidate, debate, Florida, security, social, state, Perry,
Romney
The
A
most used words overall were: the, are, to, of, said…
limitation of the word count is that you have to scan the
results to eliminate unnecessary words