Global Warming And The U.S. Election: The People Vs. The MSM

Austin, Texas-based, Global Language Monitor (GLM) documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language the world over, with a particular emphasis upon Global English.

During the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election cycle, GLM has tracked the "Top Political Buzzwords of the 2008 Presidential Campaign" in an effort to determine what concepts are driving the vote. For example, during the 2004 elect, GLM was the only source to predict that the

...electorate voting with their moral compasses rather than their pocketbooks.

This year's result is particularly interesting when it comes to the concept of global warming or climate change:

The second-most discussed term of the campaign barely surfaces in most media reports, and this is the combination of ‘Climate Change’ and/or ‘Global Warming’....Global warming within 1/2 of 1% for the overall lead.

The overall lead word, incidentally, is "change".

What's interesting about this is the brief gloss provided by GLM: The second-most discussed term of the campaign barely surfaces in most media reports. Since the GLM covers a combination of what the campaigns are saying and what the media are saying about the campaigns, what we see here is a disconnect between what the campaign senses the people want to hear discussed, and what the MSM is willing to tell them.

The situation is reversed with the concept of race. The media is obsessed; the folk, not so much

Everyone is talking about race (No. 16) except, apparently, the electorate.

The people smarter than the press? The campaigns (both of them, apparently) more responsible than the press? Seems to be. Once again we are let down by our informational "gate keepers".