We are now in part 10 of the President Bush's Speeches as Examples of Anthropologic Communications arc. Parts 1 through 3 answered "Why do this exercise?" and parts 4 through 7 "Why those messages?" Part 8 shared the results and analysis of the first anthropologic communication, "We trust you", or the ability of the speechwriter to communicate the speaker's trust of and for their audience. Part 9 shared the same for "You can trust us", the ability of the speechwriter to communicate that the speaker is trustworthy in what they do and say.
This entry shares the results and analysis of "This is important", the ability of the speechwriter to impress the audience with the timeliness, necessity or sensitivity of the message. This communication scored lowest in every speech the 2nd President Bush made in our analysis.
We previously mentioned that both the "We trust you" and the "You can trust us" messages rose rapidly after 9/11 and has held relatively steady for the past few years, although the latter's relative strength was much higher indicating a desire to communicate more vigorously that the speaker was trustworthy. The "This is important" results and analysis are:
| | Message: This is important |
| Inaugural Jan 20, 2001 | 5% |
| State of the Union Jan 29, 2002 | 9% |
| State of the Union Jan 28, 2003 | 12% |
| State of the Union Jan 20, 2004 | 12% |
| State of the Union Feb 2, 2005 | 13% |
| State of the Union Jan 31, 2006 | 11% |
| State of the Union Jan 23, 2007 | 12% |
Once again the Inaugural Address "This is important" was the weakest message in the stream, and also that it increased as did the other messages discussed thus far. Also noteworthy is that this message, "This is important", was the weakest communication in each speech. Not only was it the weakest, it was routinely communicated at half the intensity of the next weakest communication, "They're not good people".
The non-conscious message being broadcast here is that the speechwriter never felt (comparatively speaking) that what was being communicated was important or as important as it could have been. Many things occurred during the 2nd President Bush's administration and this is not an indication that White House speech writers didn't think anything of importance was happening, only that other anthropologic communications -- The Handshake messages described in Reading Virtual Minds which are so necessary in any communication -- were of greater import when the speeches were designed.
(more to follow)
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(Information in this arc is from Reading Virtual Minds Chapter 4, "Anecdotes of Learning". Text and images copyright Joseph Carrabis and NextStage Evolution 2006-2007)
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