Patent ID: 8688791

Claim:
A system for analyzing electronic messages related to an event in context of a given geographical location and time period, comprising a processing circuit that stores one or more electronic messages related to the event in a memory, wherein the one or more electronic messages comprise information text and metadata providing temporal and geographical information; the processing circuit further determines sets of electronic messages using the temporal and geographical information provided by the one or more electronic messages to create a plurality of spatio-temporal sets of electronic messages, wherein the plurality of spatio-temporal sets of electronic messages comprise a spatio-temporal set of electronic messages for the event in a given geographical location and time period, and wherein the spatio-temporal set of electronic messages is related to the event; the processing circuit also parses the spatio-temporal set of electronic messages for the event to determine event descriptor terms from the information text provided by the electronic messages in the spatio-temporal set for the event in the given geographical location and time period; the processing circuit further generates term frequency values for the event descriptor terms determined from the information text provided by the electronic messages in the spatio-temporal set for the event in the given geographical location and time period and association strength values for the event descriptor terms determined from the information text provided by the electronic messages in the spatio-temporal set for the event in the given geographical location and time period; wherein the processing circuit also uses the term frequency values and the association strength values to generate term weight values that indicate relative thematic importance of the event descriptor terms determined from the information text provided by the electronic messages in the spatio-temporal set for the event in the given geographical location and time period; and wherein the processing circuit discounts the term weight values that indicate the relative thematic importance of the event descriptor terms based upon a fraction of the spatio-temporal sets of electronic messages in which the event descriptor terms occur; the processing circuit further uses the term weight values to select one or more event descriptor terms for the event in the given geographical location and time period, wherein the selected one or more event descriptor terms collectively reflect a general viewpoint or opinion of the event in the given geographical location and time period based on the electronic messages from the spatio-temporal set; and wherein the processing circuit also provides the selected event descriptor terms which collectively reflect the general viewpoint or opinion of the event in the given geographical location and time period based on the electronic messages from the spatio-temporal set to an electronic display.