For today, we will unpack the debate strategy between our Illinois politicians by examining their word choice. To do this, we will use some useful technology to illustrate this emotional framing of language.
A) Click on the transcript of the Kirk vs. Giannoulias Debate October 19, 2010.
B) Open up a second window in the internet browser. Go to Wordle. Copy the text of your candidate's responses only and paste the responses into the dialogue box. (A) Mark Kirk (B) Alexi Giannoulias
C) Click the go button in order to create your wordle. Click layout and select horizontal to see better. You may also hit the randomize button to get a different design.
D) Take a moment to find patterns in the word choice from this debate. Try to group words into three themes (ex. safety...) If you want to know the exact number of times the word shows up in the debate, you can use the Word Frequency Counter to see the word by word breakdown.
Turn in response to me by the end of the hour-
1) Each candidate had a clear strategy for the evening. Based only on your observations of the frequency of words floated in the wordle, what did the candidate want the audience to feel about the other candidate (specific negative associations)? What did they want the audience to know about themselves (positive associations)? Use specific evidence to convince.
2) Assume your inferences are correct, which candidate is activating a stronger emotional reaction? Explain why you see this to be true.
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