19
scores provided by DICTION
as well as the variables (attributes) that compose these
scores. Following is a brief description of how DICTION
5.0 arrives at these scores:
Activity – Language featuring movement, change, the implementation of ideas and the
avoidance of inertia.
Formula: [Aggression + Accomplishment + communication + Motion] –
[Cognitive Terms + Passivity + Embellishment]
Optimism - Language endorsing some person, group, concept or event or highlighting
their positive entailments.
Formula: [Praise + Satisfaction + Inspiration] – [Blame + Hardship +
Denial]
Certainty - Language indicating resoluteness, inflexibility, completeness and a tendency
to speak ex-cathedra.
Formula: [Tenacity + Leveling + Collectives + Insistence.] – [Numerical Terms
+ Ambivalence + Self Reference + Variety]
Realism – Language describing tangible, immediate, recognizable matters that affect
people’s everyday lives.
Formula: [Familiarity + Spatial Awareness + Temporal Awareness + Present
Concern + Human Interest + Concreteness] – [Past Concern + Complexity]
Commonality – Language highlighting the agreed-upon values of a group and rejecting
idiosyncratic modes of engagement.
Formula: [Centrality + Cooperation + Rapport] – [Diversity +
Exclusion + Liberation]
The DICTION
program was run for each of the two time periods. The program
was run for each individual news network in each period as well as for all networks
together for each period. Running the election day transcripts in this fashion allows for a
cross analysis by individual news network for each election day (November 5
th
2002 and
November 7
th
2000) for both master variables as well as the individual attributes that
make them up. Running the transcripts in this fashion also makes it possible for the
authors to look at the results of all the news networks combined for one particular year
and to cross reference the results of each election year. A total of twelve files were
processed using DICTION. Ten individual network files, representing five networks per
election year, as well as two all-network files, were processed.
Convention