May 2010 CP Election: Ultimate TL;DR Version

Day 898, 20:24 • Published in Canada Canada • by saltydog
What is this?
The following are visualizations of the frequency distribution of words in both Fram's and TFD's CP-related articles. Layman's terms? The pictures show how often each candidate used a word - bigger = more often, tiny = maybe once or twice.

Why?
The saying that a picture can be worth a thousand words is doubly true when the picture is made up of the words you choose to use. This really is the ultimate TL😉R version of a platform in that you can immediately see what a candidate was concerned with through his choice of words.

Information is power, and I firmly believe we have to get information about our candidates into the hands of our voters. This kind of approach is powerful because it is neutral - I am only processing data into a visual form from what was said by each candidate.

What does it mean?
By itself, a visualization is just one set of data that paints part of a larger picture. Much of the rest of that picture is related to the political context of the race itself, which started out much the same as many recent races but quickly turned into something completely different once war on France was declared. However, these visualizations show that Fram and TFD had almost completely divergent priorities: Fram was concerned with a broad, general platform; TFD with the machinations of war.

I really wish I had found this tool earlier, before the election itself, as it could have contributed to a greater uptake in the average Canadian's understanding of each candidate's platform.


Fram's CP Platform Visualization
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TFD's CP Platform Visualization
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Method
Source texts were copied as they appeared in each article from beginning to end, excluding the titles. Once compiled, each candidate's dataset was loaded into Tagxedo for processing. Emphasis was set to 100% so as to have the font size represent the frequency of a word's use at a fixed ratio. Word Limit was set to its maximum (600) so as to give the most accurate representation of each dataset, given the limitations of the software.

Sources
Fram:
Dirty politics and the Cabinet
The road to change / Le chemin vers le changement

TF😨
Note: It must be noted that TFD's original economic plans were not included in this dataset as they were outlined in image files within his platform and not actual text.
TFD Can Into CP: Final Draft
TFD Can Into CP: The War Cabinet
TFD Can Into CP: War Face
TFD Can Into CP: O Grab Me
TFD Can Into CP: Broconomy

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