Not Much Interest Here ...

It's a curious issue here at the American University in Bulgaria (AUBG), where only a few ex-pat professors are American, and fewer are students.  Sure, the Political Science folks are chocked full of opinions, with all of the expected quasi-scientific rationales, dominantly dismissive of anything journalistic.  It's okay, because anybody with real insight knows there are no answers, just suppositions and horse-race insights.

But the student apathy, even with regional officials talking regularly about the U.S. complicity in the economic meltdown and the impending implications for local people, is confounding.  This, after all, is one of the few countries in the world that actually likes us. 

There's also a curious complacency here.  The World Economic Forum piles on the other day with a report saying that Bulgaria is very corrupt and its middle-management is profoundly incompetent -- nothing new in Bulgaria, well-stated by the EU previously -- yet minimal response from the government, saying it's true but they've made progress and are committed to the country's involvement with the EU, etc.  When I brought this up to students in my Intro to Journalism classes today, their answer was "yeah, so what ... the news media can't have any positive effect here anyway."  Really!  Then, why am I spending my time teaching it?

Of course, it's important to remember that I'm teaching the best-and-the-brightest from some 27 countries, from Zimbabwe to Mongolia, and soon to be from Afghanistan, China and North Korea.  It would be wrong for me to suggest a singular perspective here, when there are so many.  But the clear dominant group is Balkan, and their attitude can be annoyingly unwelcoming ... and discouragingly undemocratic, not to mention unAmerican.

Don't misundertand me here ... I adore the students I teach, their honesty, their extraordinary sacrifices to get here, their unflinching commitment to talking their version of truth, their ability to hear new ideas and not shrink from the implications ... it is a glorious environment in which to teach.  But even as Millenials, they exhibit a reluctance to reach "too far," to really believe that events and perspectives in other countries have impacts at home, even when it involves the ever-popular Putin.

A colleague here responded to a statement that Putin had widespread support in Russia and here by saying, "you know, he's very short."  Frankly, that's the kind of slightly-informed statement I'd expect from somebody in the U.S.
Wow ... Putin's wife arrives here and she's treated like royalty; even students from Belarus, Georgia, and Ukraine refer to him as incredibly popular, and yet  here we're inclined to demonize him for his stature.  No wonder we have problems with international respect.  Would we be delighted with statements from Russians that George Bush is an idiot, a draft-dodger, and a lackey to Cheney?  (Just being rhetorical.)

This is tough out here ... tougher than we remember when we were trying to corral the "hearts and minds" in Vietnam, or when we were trying to re-state our objectives in Central America, or when we were carefully ignoring our clear responsibilities in several consecutive pogroms in Africa, or the pathetic "we will be greeted with flowers" invasion of Iraq.  This is the war of ideas, even though we don't want to admit it, and the main idea is ours. 

I really don't think that the other academics here see this in the same way as I do.  They committed long before I agreed to come here ... some back in the early 1990's when the Soviet empire dissolved into this new world of opportunity for so many of these former Soviet republics who are trying to become something new.  I suspect that the U.S. would dearly love to see them happily embrace the U.S.-style of democracy.  But I see this as a process aimed at their own version of democracy, and I intend to teach journalism and mass communication with that in mind.  Frankly, the application of free speech and freedom of the press is the same.  The result could be freedom.

Here's difficult ... in Bulgaria, when somebody shakes their head from side-to-side, it means "yes," but when they nod up-and-down, that means "no."  In such a "contrarian" society can we expect a yes or no?  If nothing else, it should represent a "red flag" (sorry) for a culture of conflicts.  In fact, if we were to run the list of different attitudes here, it would be disarming.  And why not?  It's a different culture and nation.  Hello!!

I'd like to suggest whenever we ... as journalists, internationalists, global Americans, World Citizens ... talk about another country, it must be preceded by a clear and comprehensive statement  of the cultural and ethnic differences between them and us (whoever "us" is).  Thus, there will always be a "cultural coda" to any story or reference to cultures and governments that will reveal elemental differences between them.  It will be a start.

The Global Language Monitor

Vice Presidential Debate Linguistic Analysis:  

Palin at 10th Grade-level; Biden at 8th Grade-level

Palin’s use of passive voice highest of the 2008 Debates

The first and only vice presidential debate of the 2008 Campaign has resulted in Governor Sarah Palin, the republican nominee for vice president speaking at a 10^th grade level, with Senator Joe Biden coming in at an 8^th grade level.  Also noteworthy was the fact that Gov. Palin’s use of passive voice was the highest (at 8%) of the 2008 Presidential and Vice Presidential debates thus far.  The analysis was performed by The Global Language Monitor (www.LanguageMonitor.com), the Austin, Texas-based media analytics and analysis company.

GLM ranks the candidates’ speech on a number of levels from grade-reading level, the use of the passive voice, ‘a readability’ score (the closer to one hundred the easiest to understand, the number of words per sentence, even the number of characters per word. 

The statistical breakdown follows.

Vice Presidential Debate
	Biden	Palin	Comment
Grade Level	7.8	9.5	Palin raises a few eyebrows here.
No. of Words	5,492	5235	This is a surprise; shows tremendous restraint on the normally loquacious Biden.  Obama used 20 more words per minute than McCain.
Sentences/Paragraph	2.7	2.6	A statistical tie.
Words/Sentence	15.8	19.9	Palin even outdistances professorial Obama on this one; Obama scored 17.4
Characters/Word	4.4	4.4	Everyone has apparently learned that shorter words are easier to understand (rather than monosylablic words facilitate comprehension).
Passive Voice	5%	8%	Passive voice can be used to deflect responsibility;  Biden used active voice when referring to Cheney and Bush;  Palin countered with passive deflections.
Ease of Reading	66.7	62.4	100 is the easiest to read (or hear).

Notes:  The excessive use of passive voice can be used to obscure responsibility, since there is no ‘doer of the action’.  For example, ‘Taxes will be raised’ is a passive construction, while ‘I will raise (or lower) taxes’ is an active construction.  Five percent is considered average; low for a politician. 

By way of comparison, the ranking by grade-levels for historical debates follow.

 

Historical Contrasts	Grade level
Lincoln in Lincoln-Douglas Debates	11.2
Joseph Lieberman	9.9
Ronald Reagan	9.8
John F. Kennedy	9.6
Sarah Palin	9.5
Richard Nixon	9.1
Dick Cheney	9.1
Michael Dukakis	8.9
Bill Clinton	8.5
Al Gore	8.4
George W. Bush	7.1
George H.W. Bush	6.6
Ross Perot	6.3

 

The First Presidential Debate: 

A ‘Linguistic Dead Heat’ — with One Exception

In true professorial fashion, Obama averages some 20 more words per minute

Austin, Texas, USA.   September 28, 2008. The first presidential debate of the 2008 Campaign resulted in a ‘Linguistic Dead Heat’ according to an analysis performed by The Global Language Monitor (www.LanguageMonitor.com).  In nearly every category, from grade level to the use of passive voice, even the average numbers of letters in the words they chose, the candidates remained within the statistical margin of error with one major exception.  In the Number of Words category that the candidates used to convey their messages, Obama, in true professorial style, outdistanced McCain by some thousand words, which breaks down to an average of about 20 more words per minute.

“As in the famous Harvard-Yale game back in 1968, Harvard declared a victory after securing a come-from-behind 29-29 tie.   In the same manner, both sides in the debate have declared victory in an essential deadlocked outcome,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of GLM. “Look at the debate as a football game.  Both teams effectively moved the ball.  However, the scoring was low, and the quarterbacks performed as expected, with McCain completing some excellently thrown passes only to have others blocked by Obama.  Obama’s ground game was more impressive, churning out the yards — but he had difficulty getting the ball over the goal line.”

The statistical breakdown follows.

	McCain	Obama
Sentences per paragraph	2.2	2.1
Words per sentence	15.9	17.4
Characters per word	4.4	4.3
Passive voice	5%	5%
Ease of Reading (100 Top)	63.7	66.8
Grade Level	8.3	8.2
Number of words (approximate)	7,150	8,068

Notes:  The excessive use of passive voice can be used to obscure responsibility, since there is no ‘doer of the action’.  For example, ‘Taxes will be raised’ is a passive construction, while ‘I will raise (or lower) taxes’ is an active construction.  Five percent is considered low.