Personal Application

Under the rule of Vladimir Putin, the Russian Federation went through a unique transformation designed to negate the chaotic reforms of Boris Yeltsin, while reestablishing Russia’s role as a vital player within the international community. Since Putin’s speeches are readily available on the Kremlin’s website, I decided to use the Content Analysis Technique to examine their texts to see if any patterns or trends would emerge. As I did not have any previous research experience, I chose to use the Computerized Text Analysis of Al-Quaeda Transcripts research paper by James W. Pennebaker and Cindy K. Chung as a guide. On the personal note, I would like to thank Cindy K Chung for her continued help and clarification of the process throughout my experiment. I would have never been able to complete it without her help.

While I was trying to educate myself about the content analysis technique and all of the available software, I realized that I would not be able to do so in such a short time without the outside help. I was researching the leading authors of the text books published over the last few years, when I came across Content Analysis; An Introduction to its Methodology book by Klaus Krippendorff. I e-mailed Professor Krippendorff asking him for some guidance on selecting an appropriate software for my research without any hope to hear back. I was extremely surprised to get a reply within a day, which not only included a recommendation for LIWC software, but also a copy of the unpublished article utilizing that program for a computerized content analysis. I was thrilled! Every person I contacted from this point on was extremely eager to help. I would encourage anyone trying to replicate any of the content analysis studies to contact their original authors for clarification and guidance.

I used the Computerized Text Analysis of Al-Quaeda Transcripts research paper by James W. Pennebaker and Cindy K. Chung that Professor Krippendorff provided as a guide for my own research. Unfortunately, since I only had 10 weeks to learn about this technique, I was unable to replicate the entire study. I did however learn how to use both LICW and Hermetic Word Frequency counter Software.

I tried to create my own dictionary specifically for this study utilizing the Hermetic Word Frequency Counter Software, unfortunately it proved to be extremely impractical and time consuming. Normally, creation of a dictionary requires an analyst to generate a word frequency list and then code all of the words according to the desired categories. This requires hours of human coding and is extremely impractical for a quick analysis.



Due to the time constraints, I chose to conduct a computerized content analysis and used the standard dictionary that came with the software. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Counting software (LIWC2001) proved to be an inexpensive and valuable tool. LIWC was designed to analyze single files or groups of files of text, matching each word to the appropriate word category scale in its standard dictionary. The output file produced up to 84 output variables for each text file. The data included 17 standard linguistic dimensions (e.g., word count, percentage of pronouns, articles), 25 word categories tapping psychological constructs (e.g., affect, cognition), 10 dimensions related to "relativity" (time, space, motion), and 19 personal concern categories (e.g., work, home, leisure activities). LIWC Dictionary was composed of 2,290 most used words and word stems. Each word was assigned one or more word categories or sub-dictionaries in order to capture its essence.



Since the Kremlin’s database is not designed to allow for searches on specific subjects (i.e., nuclear or energy industry), I decided to pull the samples based on two distinctly different audiences. My ultimate goal was to see if there is a difference in the way Vladimir Putin addresses domestic and international audiences and if the way he communicate changes over time.

In order to analyze data in regards to the domestic audience, I downloaded all of Putin’s annual addresses to the Federal Assembly over the past eight years. In order to evaluate his speeches to the international audience, I took a sample of his press statements from the Kremlin database under the Diplomacy and External Affairs section. While my original goal was to download all of the speeches under the Diplomacy and External Affairs section, I realized that it was simply unrealistic for me to process such large amount of data in a very short time.

The text files were cleaned in order to convert spelling of the words from British English to American English. The final sample consisted of 8 Annual Addresses and 26 press statements from the Diplomacy and External Affairs section. The LIWC then calculated the percentage of words within 84 categories that were used within any given speech. After the program processed all of the data and saved the output in the Excel format, I calculated the averages for each category. I then compared all of the date to the established average to see what variables were outside of the “norm”.



I was extremely frustrated that there were no set guidelines on how to evaluate the data, which became a substantial drawback to utilizing this technique. However, after reviewing all of the data, I was extremely surprised with the consistency of his speeches over time within either the domestic or international data sets.










Even though I was unable to figure out the exact meaning of the data, it was very interesting to see the differences in domestic and international presentations. The most striking trend within his speeches was the use of pronouns. He used “I” almost twice as much in addressing international audiences versus the domestic populace, which would portrait his command over the subject matter. His average use of “we” was 1.5 times higher in his address to the international audience, which could be interpreted as an inclusive technique. However, the ratio of I/We for both domestic and international audiences in his speeches were approximately the same (.32 and .35 respectively), which facilitated a strong connection between him and both audiences.

Putin’s choice to use the words of positive emotions and positive feelings were roughly two times higher in addressing international audiences, while negative emotions and anger were 3 times higher in his addresses to the domestic audience. He seems to reinforce his degree of closeness to the international audiences, while simultaneously appealing to Russian xenophobia. He also referred on average to “friends” 5 times more when addressing the international community versus domestic.

There seems to be a constant trend of consistency throughout all of his speeches across all categories, which led me to believe that they all were carefully compiled to follow a certain formula. All future speeches that do not follow the same patterns should be carefully examined for possible changes in policies. It seems to me that the below image best describes my findings.