From: Lawrence DeBivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Sun 02 Mar 2003 - 13:08:49 GMT
Greetings, Scott,
Leaving aside the unfortunate degeneration of language (not that that is a
new phenomenon!), and leaving aside 'celebrity'-based fads, I wonder whether
word-spike studies might not have a serious purpose, indicating trends in
the adoption of ideas or preoccupation with them. One could conceive that
such spikes indicate shifts of attention.
The US CIA explored a similar methodology in the 50s, calling it 'content
analysis'. The idea was that by tracking the number of times a theme was
discussed in the press, one could discern patterns that had predictive
value. That is, if journalists were talking about an innovative technology,
or about a social concern, that that was a forewarner that the theme was
going to become important. I don't think this methodology proved to be of
much worth, though it did spawn John Naisbitt's book, Megatrends.
Might blogs, beyond word-spikes, convey 'idea-spikes'? Might they provide a
vector for tracking meme dissemination?
(BTW, I didn't notice who posted the first blog item here, but my thanks.
Blogs are not a development that I had paid attention to, and now I'll check
it out. Arthur, is the "instapundits" site your referenced a blog?)
Cheers,
Lawry
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Scott Chase
> Sent: Sun, March 02, 2003 1:30 AM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Word-use spikes
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: "Lawrence DeBivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
> >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> >To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> >Subject: Word-use spikes
> >Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 21:08:03 -0500
> >
> >WORD 'BURSTS' MAY REVEAL ONLINE TRENDS
> >By Will Knight
> >New Scientist
> >February 18, 2003
> >
> >http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993405
> >
> >Searching for sudden "bursts" in the usage of particular words could be
> >used
> >to rapidly identify new trends and sort information more
> efficiently, says
> >a
> >US computer scientist.
> >
> >Jon Kleinberg, at Cornell University in New York, has developed computer
> >algorithms that identify bursts of word use in documents.
> >
> >While other popular search techniques simply count the number of words or
> >phrases in documents, Kleinberg's approach also takes into
> account the rate
> >at which the word usage increases.
> >
> >Kleinberg suggests that the method could be applied to weblogs
> to track new
> >social trends. For example, identifying word bursts in the hundreds of
> >thousands of personal diaries now on the web could help
> advertisers quickly
> >spot an emerging craze.
> >
> >Hot or not
> >
> >The algorithms used to identify these sudden bursts are
> relatively simple,
> >but very powerful, says Christos Papadimitriou, at the University of
> >California at Berkeley.
> >
> >"The key is to find unexpected changes in the frequency of the
> appearance
> >of
> >words," he told New Scientist. Papadimitriou agrees the method
> could prove
> >valuable when searching for new trends in weblogs.
> >
> >The approach could also be applied to sifting through other types of
> >information. Identifying word bursts within email messages sent to a
> >company's customer support address might help maintenance staff spot a
> >major
> >new problem.
> >
> >Researchers at Google, the world's most widely used internet
> search engine,
> >have already shown that identifying spikes in search terms can be used to
> >track the spread of news and rumours around the world. The
> algorithms that
> >run Google's automated news aggregation service remain secret, but it is
> >not
> >difficult to imagine that word bursts could, or do, have a useful role.
> >
> >In a simple historical test of the technique, Kleinberg analysed all the
> >annual State of the Union addresses given by US Presidents since 1790. He
> >found that particular word "bursts" could indeed be linked to important
> >events at the time the speeches were delivered.
> >
> >In the years that immediately followed the American Revolution, for
> >example,
> >sudden bursts in the use of words such as "militia", "British" and
> >"savages"
> >are found.
> >
> >From 1930 to 1937 a spike in the use of the word "depression" is seen.
> >
> Gee. I wonder why... Could it be that the Great Depression was a reality
> within that time period?
> >
> >And
> >from 1949 to 1959 "atomic" is the word with the greatest "burstiness".
> >
> Atomic is bursty in another way, but it's not surprising that the word
> "atomic" would spike when the reality of Hiroshima and the
> subsequent arms
> race ht home.
> >
> >Later
> >in the 20th century, words such as "Vietnam",
> >
> Well, I'd suppose that if there was a military act^H^H^H^H^war
> going on in
> Vietnam, that country's name might be mentioned a tad more.
> >
> "Soviet", "communist" and
> >"Afghanistan" increase sharply in usage.
> >
> Gee, I wonder why Afghanistan might have spiked recently. It's almost
> trivial to point it out, but if one wishes to shoehorn historical
> data into
> a cubbyhole of word usage trends, you'll have plenty of word usage trends
> subsequent to historical events that bring those words into the forefront.
> >
> >Kleinberg presents his findings on Tuesday at the American
> Association for
> >the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Denver, Colorado.
> >
> >
> >
> I'd predict that popular uttering of the names of the stars of the
> television show "Friends" spiked sharply after that show first
> appeared and
> became popular. I could be wrong, but it's just a sneaking
> suspicion I have.
> I have no idea why...
>
> In professional football (not soccer or rugby-like facsimiles), there may
> have been word spikes over the past decade for terms like "run and shoot
> offense" and "west coast offense".
>
> All kidding aside, I suppose this information on bursting could
> be useful,
> to marketers especially.
>
> I've subjectively noticed a very annoying tend in usage of the word
> "absolutely". I don't know what the heck is going on with people
> feeling the
> need to utter this word in such emotive manners, but it needs to
> stop. Has
> anybody else noticed this trend? It's like the "fershure" of the 00's,
> except I don't think Zappa or offspring had anything to do with
> it this time
> around.
>
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> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
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> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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