Political Technology at it's best

New Scientist today had an article about a new software system that measures the amount of "spin" in a politician's speech. It's definately an interesting concept.

In brief, what the software does is analyze the content of the speech for use of certain pronouns, as well as looking at the use of positive vs. negative verbs. Another aspect they look at is the inflection of the voice. My favorite line there is what they say about John McCain: "The voice analysis profile for McCain looks very much like someone who is clinically depressed." Too true. But I digress. What I find most interesting about this article is the method of analysis of "spin".

The creator of the software, Canadian David Sillicorn, arbitrarily defines "spin" as an increased use of third person pronouns, "we", over first person pronouns, "I", and an increased use of action verbs and strong negatively charged words. Sillicorn makes a lot of assumptions about a politician's use of words, and many of these I feel are unfounded. If a politician is talking about the country doing something, they should rightly use the third person; it would be construed as pompous of them to do otherwise. While I can understand the increased use of negative words as trying to define an enemy, which could be one aspect of "spin", using an increased use of action verbs to define spin makes no sense. Politicians running for election are all about the future; for them to use passive voice or present or past tense verbs only makes sense when paired with action verbs: the plan that this person has for the future.

The article opens with an interesting vignette, the "expression of disgust on former US president Bill Clinton's face during his speech to the Democratic National Convention as he says 'Obama'." I was in hopes that the software they were describing would be a frame by frame analysis of a politician's facial features or vocal inflection while they gave a speech. That, I think, would be more telling than an analysis of the content of the speech. Speeches are specifically tailored to a target audience, and I don't think that simply by analyzing the use of certain words can significantly quantify any sort of "spin" content. Leave that decision to the voters.