Many thanks to Luis van den Ende from Submarine Channel for sending me details of this fascinating interactive documentary titled ‘Unspeak‘ that combines film, data visualisation, technology and design to investigate the issue of language that deliberately manipulates public opinion.
The subject matter is based on British journalist Steven Poole´s book ‘Unspeak‘ about a form of coded language that is used by politicians, corporates and the media to manipulate public opinion: terms like Oil Spill, Climate Change, File Sharing, Erectile Dysfunction, and Clean Coal:
This project aims to kickstart the conversation, educate and empower audiences, and make the prevalence of Unspeak framing visible to the public. People will not be taken in for a moment by the power of deceptive language if we actually stop to think about it. Once you tune in to the wealth of daily Unspeak talk, you’ll start seeing and hearing it everywhere. And then, perhaps, we can fight back.
The trailer provides an alternative introduction:
Within the site you have several elements, from the glossary of terms and their explanations and a series of 6 short films with each episode covering a different theme: such as natural disasters, financial crisis and political rhetoric.
You then can explore the prevalence and usage of the growing bank of Unspeak terms, looking at the mentions of each term of twitter over time, by geography and within networks, with options to break down the results by gender, sentiment and age.
Everyone is invited and encouraged to record mentions of the usage of ‘Unspeak’ words or contribute new ones, as well as help increase the awareness of this growing vocabulary of manipulation: “The more people contribute new words, the better we can fight back“.