Tracing Merriam-Webster's Words Of The Year 2010-2019 In Television News

Kalev Leetaru

5 years ago

Looking back at the words choosen as the word of the year by Merriam-Webster each year over the past decade, how well do they align with their usage in television news on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News?

2010 – "Austerity"

Live Version.

2011 – "Pragmatic"

Live Version.

2012 – "Socialism, Capitalism"

Live Version.

2013 – "Science"

Live Version.

2014 – "Culture"

Live Version.

2015 – "-ism"

Note that this was computed using the television news ngrams dataset and thus the y scale is different from the other graphs, representing the percentage of words rather than airtime. The actual query used (repeated for each of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News):

SELECT DATE, SUM(COUNT) TOTWORDS, SUM(OURCOUNT) TOTOURWORDS, SUM(OURCOUNT) / SUM(COUNT) * 100 perc_ourside, SUM(THEIRCOUNT) TOTTHEIRWORDS, SUM(THEIRCOUNT) / SUM(COUNT) * 100 perc_theirside FROM (
SELECT SUBSTR(CAST(DATE AS STRING), 0, 6) DATE, WORD, 0 COUNT, COUNT OURCOUNT, 0 THEIRCOUNT FROM `gdelt-bq.gdeltv2.iatv_1grams` WHERE STATION='FOXNEWS' and WORD in ( select DISTINCT(WORD) FROM `gdelt-bq.gdeltv2.iatv_1grams` WHERE STATION='FOXNEWS' AND WORD LIKE '%ism' )
UNION ALL
SELECT SUBSTR(CAST(DATE AS STRING), 0, 6) DATE, WORD, 0 COUNT, 0 OURCOUNT, COUNT THEIRCOUNT FROM `gdelt-bq.gdeltv2.iatv_1grams` WHERE STATION='FOXNEWS' and WORD in ( select DISTINCT(WORD) FROM `gdelt-bq.gdeltv2.iatv_1grams` WHERE STATION='FOXNEWS' AND WORD LIKE '%ism' )
UNION ALL
SELECT SUBSTR(CAST(DATE AS STRING), 0, 6) DATE, WORD, COUNT, 0 OURCOUNT, 0 THEIRCOUNT FROM `gdelt-bq.gdeltv2.iatv_1grams` WHERE STATION='FOXNEWS' 
) group by DATE order by DATE asc

2016 – "Surreal"

Live Version.

2017 – "Feminism"

Live Version.

2018 – "Justice"

Live Version.

2019 – "They"

SELECT DATE, SUM(COUNT) TOTWORDS, SUM(OURCOUNT) TOTOURWORDS, SUM(OURCOUNT) / SUM(COUNT) * 100 perc_ourside, SUM(THEIRCOUNT) TOTTHEIRWORDS, SUM(THEIRCOUNT) / SUM(COUNT) * 100 perc_theirside FROM (
SELECT SUBSTR(CAST(DATE AS STRING), 0, 6) DATE, WORD, 0 COUNT, COUNT OURCOUNT, 0 THEIRCOUNT FROM `gdelt-bq.gdeltv2.iatv_1grams` WHERE STATION='FOXNEWS' and WORD in ( SELECT * FROM UNNEST (["they"]) AS WORD )
UNION ALL
SELECT SUBSTR(CAST(DATE AS STRING), 0, 6) DATE, WORD, 0 COUNT, 0 OURCOUNT, COUNT THEIRCOUNT FROM `gdelt-bq.gdeltv2.iatv_1grams` WHERE STATION='FOXNEWS' and WORD in ( SELECT * FROM UNNEST (["they"]) AS WORD )
UNION ALL
SELECT SUBSTR(CAST(DATE AS STRING), 0, 6) DATE, WORD, COUNT, 0 OURCOUNT, 0 THEIRCOUNT FROM `gdelt-bq.gdeltv2.iatv_1grams` WHERE STATION='FOXNEWS' 
) group by DATE order by DATE asc