The following article by Chris Tribble discusses the uses of words associated with 'SWOT' (a "management speak" acronym) in the (Manchester) Guardian Weekly.

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

SWOT is a management speak acronym that has crept into general usage. It stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and ia an analysis technique used in marketing and project management. But apply SWOT to the Guardian Weekly (1996 - 2008) and we find that its four elements are unevenly distributed.

Counting singular and plural forms together reveals a preponderance of threat/s (6,734), followed by 3,418 opportunity/ies and then only 1,992 strength/s and 1,351 weakness/es. Mutual information analysis reveals that the SWOT components not only contrast in number, but are also very different in kind.

The impression that the world is a place where threats outweigh opportunities is reinforced when we look at the words which go with each of the SWOT terms. Strength is mainly linked with economic status, (sterling, pound, recovery, numbers, economy, dollar, euro), although personal qualities (character, endurance, courage, confidence, commitment) also matter. Weakness is also linked with political economy (power, international, foreign, security, Blair, opposition, Russia's, euro, economy, dollar.

Opportunity seems to fit into a different paradigm, being most often linked with social opportunity (housing, people, fund, women, offer, poor, local, life, good, better), professional opportunity (advancement, offered, presented, firms, work, foreign), or institutional mechanisms for ensuring opportunity for all (learning, education, equal, commission, create, created, raining).

Threats tell a very different story. Here we find the vast majority of threats which are posed or which we face can be classes as military-political and include terrorism, security, stability, peace, national, US, global, world, Saddam, violence, nuclear.

The Guardian Weekly seems to have been reporting on a society that sees strengths and weaknesses in terms of economic status or personal qualities, which emphasises he importance of improving social opportunities for its citizens, but which does this in he face of unremitting threats from external sources. Maybe there's something in SWOT analysis after all.