Welcome to Word Watch

Welcome to Word Watch! 


As communication students and journalists, we share a passion for words. The 2012 campaign and media coverage offers us an incredible opportunity to examine rhetoric and the manipulation of words. 


The media pays attention to language when candidates chooses their words poorly.  These events and the intense, but fleeting coverage which accompanies them, disregards the subtleties of rhetoric and its influence on journalism. 

For example, when Democrats or Republican discussed environmental policy during the 2012 nominating conventions, they covered many of the same issues, but the difference, as Jeremy Fugleberg from the Casper Star Tribune points out in a 2012 article, comes down to one, not-so-small thing — rhetoric. 

During the Democratic National Convention, President Obama disucssed environmental policy and used the phrase "climate change," (see above video).

Despite its original conservative origins, "climate change" is considered a neutral term and is often used by journalists in an attempt to be unbiased.

Obama avoided the typically liberal term, "global warming." Instead, he framed the phrase with connotations invoking fear and a serious tone by claiming it isn't a "hoax," and it poses a "threat."


When Rick Perry denied the existence of the environmental phenomenon, he used the phrase "Global Warming" —the wording typically used by liberals. His presented it as an incorrect, corrupt and misleading theory, and associated those connotations with the phrase typically used by liberals. 

If you think these phrases are coincidental — think again.

According to a 2007, Minnesota Public Radio article, environmental policy rhetoric is loaded with intentional political meaning —

"In fact, a 2002 memo encouraged Republicans to go with climate change because it 'sounds a more controllable and less emotional challenge,' whereas global warming sounds like it has "catastrophic connotations."

Ultimately, politicians have to choose phrases, rhetoric and language to describe a policy. This means either adopting language used by a candidate or borrowing obscure rhetoric from a policy wonk and hoping the reader understands. 

The language the media adopts is advanced. By spreading a party’s rhetoric, these seemingly unbiased journalists advance something more powerful than any advertisement or editorial — they spread a party's language.

These small phrases change the way we think about politics, candidates and the world. 


Words are too important to ignore. So we decided to watch them for you and help you, our readers, become better consumers of media by raising awareness of political rhetoric's influence.
Our focus is on the 2012 Missouri gubernatorial race between incumbent Democrat Jay Nixon and challenger Republican Dave Spence.

Each week, we will choose a policy area and examine rhetoric used by the candidates’ advertisements, speeches, websites and direct-mail pieces along with any other campaign literature we can get our hands on.

We welcome and encourage interaction! Please comment or suggest a topic you'd like us to investigate!