This is a stretch, but here it goes. I think that the words we use give us a sense of how we see the world. This is to say that whether we are a hopeful (which has 20,620,000 Google "hits") people or a fearful (12,700,000 Google hits) people, it shows up in the words we use. Now there are serious flaws in precisely measuring the words we use, the language we speak being an obvious one. Another is the technology we use to collect "word usage." since many people do not use computers or use them only to gather information (not to write it); so it is hard to know what they are saying and thereby thinking.
These two significant limitations put aside then, we still can get a sense of what a significant subsection of the population is thinking about and, perhaps, make some glaring generalizations.
There is a liberal bias to the Web, at least there are 80,900,000 hits for "liberal" and only 59,500,000 for "conservative". Democrats and Republicans are fairly close with 42,000,000 and 37,510,000 hits respectively. Libertarians get 1,760,000 hits while Socialists receive 5,840,000 and Communists--10,400,000 hits.
But it is clear we are a conflicted people as "red states" get 168,000,000 hits and "blue states" only get 57,600,000. Among the political entertainers, Jon Stewart receives 8,430,000 hits and Rush Limbaugh 4,800,000. Fox News receives 54,100,000 hits and CBS News 116,000,000.
No comments:
Post a Comment