MMMM # 123 -- Google's New Media Popularity Machine

     The omnipresent search company came out last week with a tool to search thousands of books over the past century for words or phrases. Boring? Hardly. Addicting, I'd say. Why, for example, was there such a dramatic peak in references to Alabama around 1921? And why no equally huge spike in the 1960's during the Civil Rights Era?

      Try the program yourself, Compare two words---or two names---, and watch their use rise and fall over the decades.

     The data must be taken for what it is...especially in the earlier decades when magazines and newspapers may have been more widely read than books. The Ngram viewer only looks at books. But I'll be amazed if a combination tool searching everything in the world for a phrase won't be far behind.

     Som interesting examples..why has The University of Alabama at Birmingham's star fallen in recent years after dramatic growth? Watch Barack Obama go from absolute zero to top of the charts. And note that a search of Georgia and Alabama sees the two states follow a similar up and down path..indicating that they are treated only in reference to their location in the South rather than as individual entities? Or am I reading too much into it? Also...compare New York and New Jersey. No wonder the Garden State gets no respect.

     Have fun!

[ALSO: The group called "Media Matters" has published another internal memo from FOX News, this one about the "notion" of climate change. It has the bosses upstairs telling FOX reporters to question that "notion" in their stories.

    Interference from above is hardly unheard of in the news business. But at the best operations, reporters and news department managers are given editorial freedom to report the facts. Period.]

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]