For starters, a definition of “General Conference” for our non-Mormon readers. General Conference occurs once in April and once in November–and it’s a series of meetings that occur on Saturday and Sunday in lieu of our regular local church services. The meetings take place in Salt Lake City, but are transmitted via satellite in real time and then translated into other languages for Mormons around the world. On Saturday, two two-hour meetings take place for the general church membership (from 10:00-12:00 and from 2:00-4:00) and then on Saturday night, there’s a meeting only for the men-folk. The women stay home and take care of the babes, as we rightly should (JK!). And then on Sunday, there are two more two-hour meetings (again, from 10:00-12:00 and from 2:00-4:00). In case you’re wondering why the women don’t get their own special meeting, we do–it happens just once yearly, in September. Don’t ask why; there’s no rational explanation for it.
Mormons in Utah can actually attend the conference (although there are limited seats) or they can watch it on TV. Mormons outside of Utah can either watch it on TV (if they have DirectTV) or go to their local church building and sit in the dark sanctuary and watch the satellite broadcast. It’s weird, I know–and it’s mind numbingly boring for the kids.
Jokes aside, General Conference is serious business for Mormons because it’s a chance for us to hear what the leaders of our church think is important. Therefore, I was fascinated by this word cloud that I saw on Facebook. I actually tried to find the source and couldn’t, but found numerous other word clouds of past General Conferences.
The caption next to the image said, “Through data mining, these were the 100 most frequently used words during general conference. The emphasis these words receive in the text through repetition is mirrored in the design by assigning them a font size proportional to their incidence.” The picture title is “The Most Important Words.”
So, wise Doves & Serpents readers, what do you think of this word cloud that represents the most important messages Mormon leaders shared with their congregants in a twice-yearly conference? If you’re Mormon, do you like what you see?
I’ll take a stab at a response. I like that God, Jesus, Christ, and Lord are big. I mean, Mormonism is a Christian church (despite suggestions by evangelical preachers in the news lately). But I wish Father and Priesthood weren’t so big. And Church is the focus of the whole thing. Surprisingly, Mother didn’t even make the list (which makes me wonder whether the September women-only meeting was included in the data pool). Daughter got a mention, but it’s quite small.
I can think of some words I wish were there–equality, social justice, liberty, difference, patience, understanding. I wish love, respect, and service were smack dab in the middle of the image–in 72-pt. font.
And if you’re not Mormon, what do you think? Do any of the word sizes (which represent frequency) surprise you? Are there any you might expect to see that aren’t there (and please don’t say “polygamy” . . .) )?
If someone were to make a similar word cloud from meetings/sermons at your church, what would be the biggest words? Would you like the resulting image?
And if you didn’t, what then?
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Edited to add: see additional word clouds contributed by geoffsn here: General Conference World Clouds 2.0
Regarding “father”, keep in mind that this would include occurrences of “Heavenly Father.”
Yes, Kim. I thought of that and it made me feel better for a second . . . until I realized that it could also, therefore, have included “Heavenly Mother.”
But it didn’t.
and the word “Heavenly” is really small, and could have included other uses of the word besides “Heavenly Father”- therefore, from this word cloud, it seems the word father was used quite often, not associated with heavenly.
How about the word, “Parent”? That is what I would like to see.
Yeah, but you also have to remember that if someone says “Heavenly Father” and “Father in Heaven,” the word map will show Father twice as large as Heaven and Heavenly, which are treated separately.
I think it will be quite a while before we see Heavenly Mother mentioned even more than once in conference.
Oh yes. I’d be shocked to see Heavenly Mother appear in the Top 100 words . . . but that’s sad and disappointing, if you ask me.
Heather, it’s so interesting how my initial reactions were nearly identical to yours. God, Lord, Christ, Jesus, all jump off the page. Next thing I noticed was the frequent mentions of Father and Priesthood. My initial reaction to Father was the same as Kim’s (i.e., this includes “Heavenly Father”), but note that “Heavenly” seems to only get a few mentions so there clearly is more going on here. In any event, it makes glaring Heather’s point about the complete absence of Heavenly Mother. I also specifically went looking for Mother and was shocked not to find it. I then went looking for words like charity (not mentioned at all?), service (minor mention), etc., as was a little surprised at how little emphasis there was there.
My final thought here is that it is rather telling that the word “Church” is about 4 times larger than “Love.”
“Sisters” is a slightly larger size than “brethren” and “women” is the same size as “brethren” but you’d need to check on the use of “priesthood” to see how often it was used as a substitute for “men” or brethren.” They often address the men as “we remind the brethren of the priesthood that…” regarding the priesthood meeting. The men also get “brothers.”
On the positive side, “Joseph” is quite small.
“Know” is big, “believe” is much smaller. “Faith” is in-between.
In terms of frequency of a word, you have to remember that some are used a lot but not in the context of a spiritual address, like nearly each time a speaker is introduced, the word “Elder” is going to be used–except for the 2 token women speakers, a member of the YM or SS presidency and one of the FP members. Also a member of the Presiding Bishopric.
Same thing with the name of the church which is repeated at the beginning of each session, “We welcome you to the 1,000 General Conference of the Church of JC of LDS.”
I’m surprised “God” is so big. I’ve always been under the impression that Mormons tend to use “Heavenly Father” rather than God. But my most recent church experience was three years in junior primary, so that I might have a bit of a skewed perspective.
I’d like to see “Faith” and “Believe” be larger than “Know.” One thing that made me feel like I didn’t belong at church was that I didn’t know any of it was true, and it always felt like believing wasn’t good enough.
I’d like that, too, philomytha.
General Conference themes change and we hear different messages every 6 months. When I saw the word “FATHER” kind of biggish, I remembered with fondness Sister Elaine Dalton’s talk during this session. It was awesome. She probably said the word “father” 50 times all by herself as she addressed fathers and their obligations to raise happy, well-adjusted daughters. I basked in the moment (as a mother of 5 daughters) to listen to the General YW President counsel fathers from the General Conference pulpit. We often hear messages from male and female leaders directed toward women. But this was the first General Conference talk (in my memory–and I am a conference fan) where a female leader specifically gave directions to the fathers.
And as a Mormon in the Bible belt, I was happy to see “JESUS” and “CHRIST” in large letters. Relief.
This is great, Karin. And I knew you’d like to see JESUS and CHRIST in large letters. ;) Makes Mr. Jeffers’ (or whatever his name is) claims that Mormons aren’t Christian seem laughable.
The one that surprises me the most is the relative lack of “revelation.”
I wonder if Father and Priesthood are so large because of the “Priesthood Session.” I could make a new word cloud that either:
A: excludes Priesthood Session, or
B: includes the Women’s Conference
what say ye?
Would be interesting to see. I say yes.
geoffsn, are you the one who made the original one?? I’d love to see another one that either excludes the priesthood session or includes the women’s conference. Are you seriously offering to make another one? If so, email it/them to me and I’ll add them to the post (or do another post). heather@thebeals.net
I didn’t make the original, but I’ve made these before. I actually made one for each book in the Book of Mormon. I just finished one without Priesthood Session, and I’ll soon be done with the one with both Priesthood Session and the Women’s Conference. I’ll send them your way.
Cool!!
While you wait, you should know that Father is still very large, likely because of Heavenly Father and the talk about Fathers. However, Priesthood is quite small when omitting the priesthood session.
Before anyone gets upset about the repeated use of the word, Father, I would recommend looking at movements like “The Fatherhood Initiative,” etc. The incredibly high number of single-mother households should make us all want to push for men to assume healthy, fatherly responsibilities.
Someone on FB just pointed out that “modesty” and “pornography” didn’t make the list! ;)
Tithing didn’t make it either. I guess it’s not close enough to December. :)
I think if you took and made a word cloud like this from your daily conversations, it wouldn’t necessarily tell people anything about who you really are or maybe even what is considered most important to you. I think there’s alot that could be said here about taking things out of context and such. As a “Mormon”, and conference listener for these sessions, I most certainly didn’t walk away from them feeling jipped as a woman because they didn’t say words like “mother” and “sisters” and “women” etc enough. In all honesty, I think this word cloud thing shouldn’t be taken too seriously as any sort of an indication of what the leadership of the church feels is important for us to know or focus on. The spirit I felt from listening to ALL, not just parts, of all the messages of conference was a feeling of increased love and kindness for others, a greater appreciation for who I am as a women and my role in God’s plan, more love towards my family and my responsibilities and privileges within my family, and a greater appreciation for belonging to the Church…I heard many messages that encouraged me to become a better person, citizen in my community, and family member. But, if you go in to any situation looking to be offended or look for what’s wrong with it, you’ll most definately will find it my friends…even if it’s not there to be found.
Thanks for stopping by, Gina. I don’t think my post said I went into it looking to be offended or looking for what’s wrong. And of course I wouldn’t join or leave a church based on a word cloud . . . but I do think a visual representation of the content of GC talks is interesting.
and it is, interesting to some degree. I was just answering your question “what do you think”…and that’s what I think. That it’s not an accurate representation of what the leadership tried to convey was important at conference. And I didn’t mean to imply anything in regards to you or this posting…just had to point out that sometimes people will take something like this and become offended or bothered and blow it way out of proportion.
Fair enough. ;) I don’t take things personally, so it’s easy for me to look at something and either agree or disagree with it and move on. But it’s a fair enough observation that a silly thing like a word cloud misses tone, facial gestures, emphasis in speech, the spirit, etc.
Very well said, Gina. Amen.
While these words are, of course, not covering everything that was talked about at Conference, it’s cool to see the things that may have been emphasized. The speakers were inspired by the Spirit, so I can imagine these words were what we needed to hear.
On another note, it looks like the tags section at the bottom of this page is a word cloud of sorts too!
Thanks for posting this – it was my favorite post in my Google Reader this week!!
I found the source of the word cloud if your interested. http://holyclouds.blogspot.com/2011/10/test-post.html?spref=fb
I would like to point out that General Conference is held in April and OCTOBER. Not November. That is all.
Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking . . . maybe I was thinking that the transcripts come out in the November Ensign??