punditry.ca — uncovering DSU elections

Word Clouds are quick-look visualizations of the most common words in hunks of text.  They can be used for context-free analysis of text themes (though of course, context-free is not always a good thing).  Like last year, I’m using them to look at platforms, starting with VP Internal.  It won’t find you good ideas on issues mentioned only once, but it is a look at what seems to carry the most weight in the platform.

Methodology.  I used the same back-end tools as Wordle, removed all stop words (common words like the, and, a…), asked for words to be mostly-horizontal, allowed layout to be stochastic, replaced the plural with the singular for common words (like grant/grants), and from time-to-time dropped “-ing” (e.g. work/working).  The input text was a copy-paste of the platforms on March 17.

The shorter the text, the less reliable the word cloud.  INcluding stop words, total platform words for each candidate are Hiltz: 688; Kurin: 1,072; Whitfield: 1,362; Blake: 1591.  Society/Societies was the #1 word for all 4 candidates, followed by Student/Students, so I removed all four of these words.

Glenn Blake

Tim Hiltz

Kayla Kurin

Henry Whitfield

• Some thoughts; note that these comments are ONLY on word clouds unless otherwise specified.
• I begin my analysis by showing the dangers of relying on word clouds.  One might look at Blake’s word cloud and see the dominant word “events”.  The natural conclusion is he is stepping all over the portfolio of VP Student Life.  And he is, a bit, but he knows it – he specifically wants to involve the VP SL in making more events to show-case Dal’s diversity.  Mostly the word is used in the context of supporting or enabling society events.
• The VP I is the communications officer of the DSU.  I was surprised to see that so few words related to the idea of communicating.  Blake has “listserv”, possibly “community” and “show” and “available”.  Hiltz has “handbook” and possibly “meetings” and “available”.  Kurin has “calendar”, “networking”, “information”, “website”, “updated”, and maybe “list” and “regular”.  Whitfield actually has “communication”, as well as “website”, and possibly “residence”  and heavy weight on “available”.  I am surprised to see “website” in only two word clouds.
• “Grants” makes an appearance in every word cloud, and is especially prominent for Blake.  ”ratification“, on the other hand, comes up for Hiltz and Whitfield only.
• Looking at the major unique themes,
  • Kurin has a big focus on the services the DSU provides to students.  ”Accessibility” and “accessible” when taken together would be another major theme.
  • Blake is interested in food and DSU/society events.  (Which overlap heavily with VP FO and VP SL, respectively).  Diversity is also important to his platform.
  • Hiltz is interesting because the major words don’t really map to new ideas; rather they relate to his job description.  Taken together – plan, improve, process, handbook, ratification, committee, grants – it sounds like his promise is to do the job, but to do it better and improve the processes of the DSU.  Fair enough.
  • Whitfield is pushing how he’ll be available. It also sounds like he agrees with Hiltz on taking issue with the current status, talking about  system and process.
• Looking at the major action words,
  • Whitfield’s is pitching that he’ll work hard and put in the time:  “work”, “working”, perhaps “hours”.  ”New” could indicate innovation.
  • Hiltz is talking about a desire to “improve” and “shorten”.
  • Blake wants to “get” things, “give” things, “show” things, and make things “run” and “go”.  Surprisingly all short words.  He also “know”s things.
  • Kurin’s big word is “create” and also uses “new“, which could speak to innovation.  She also uses ”ensure“, which tends to mean seeing to existing programs/duties, but also talks about “new”.  ”work” appears in her cloud; returning to the platform, always in the form “work with”, which speaks to collaboration.
• Whitfield’s is the only one where “residence” makes an appearance, which should not surprise anyone.
• Hiltz’s is the only one where both “Sexton” and “Carleton” appear.

See anything else interesting?  The comments section awaits.