Monday, August 25, 2014

NYT-speak continued

The New York Times' choice of words tells much about history and the media. As seen before, their Chronicle shows great snapshots of the newspaper's wording evolution.

Here, a few more cases.

Information sourcing

As Robert Fisk once noted, the media now rely more on what officials said, rather than sourcing news by themselves. That's a confirmation:



Money and knowledge in crises



Though in general money and knowledge move in the same directions, money moves in greater magnitudes. Also, notice that in the Great Depression, as well as in the Great Recession, the NYT mentioned money less frequently. And the opposite happened during stagflation in the 70s.

Inflation and unemployment



Mentions of unemployment and inflation went in different directions before the 70s: right until the economy happened to have both. But it was a short period and right now there're no mutual relations (at least, in wording).

In- and equality



Inequality never was an issue for the NYT. Even in the late 20s, when inequality was extremely high. So, it's a new topic. Meanwhile, previous mentions of equality are generally associated with civil rights movements, as in the 60s.

"Make war, not love"




At its peak, war themes took up to 30% of the newspaper materials. But local wars, like Iraq and Afghanistan, never draw so much attention.

Referring to minorities


A similar graph was in the previous post, but here changes in wording are clearer. Especially right after the Civil War, when politicians no longer needed support from the black population, and one hundred years later, when politicians and media had to update their vocabulary.

Sports becoming more popular




No comments:

Post a Comment