Word clouds send a message
There's a message in the clouds. And it's directed at you.
A week's worth of words from Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott can tell you a lot about their election campaign strategy.
The Prime Minister's word cloud, assembled on wordle.com by The West Australian using more than 28,000 words from his press conferences and interviews, is especially illuminating.
Australia. Future. Abbott. Cut.
These four words are the ones Mr Rudd has been hitting most.
Throw in a couple of prepositions and the Labor strategy is stark: Australia's future (under) Abbott (is) cuts.
The Opposition Leader's word cloud, assembled using 32,000 words from media events in the past week, shows he has been less on the attack and more about appealing to the masses.
People. Want. Mr Abbott has used these two words in equal measure over the past week.
His second-order words: Rudd. Labor. Government. Think. Tax.
No need for prepositions to understand the undertone. Lower down there are some interesting aspects to Mr Abbott's words.
GST pops up, as does the word "Budget", while the Greens and minority have also appeared.
University of WA political scientist William Bowe said elections were decided by disengaged voters who made their decisions late in campaigns, "largely on the basis of emotional responses".
"The political strategy is triggering those responses," Mr Bowe said.
"The word clouds show that Kevin Rudd is encouraging voters to think about what's in the future, not the last three years of Labor."
He said Mr Abbott's language combined the coalition's long-term political strategy on tax with an attempt to address his problem with being negative through the use of inclusive words.
