metaViz is a tool designed for readers of political blogs. It uses computational metaphor identification to find linguistic patterns in political blogs that indicate potential conceptual metaphors. For example, a candidate might win an election, be defeated in the primary, survive an election, or lose a vote. This language suggests the metaphor AN ELECTION IS A BATTLE framing an election as if it were a battle or war. However, this is not the only possible metaphor for an election.

The goal of metaViz is to encourage readers of political blogs to look not only at the words themselves, but also at the implications between and behind the words. In this way, metaViz seeks to foster critical thinking on the part of blog readers. This tool draws to readers’ attention to patterns across multiple blogs and encourages readers to interpret these patterns. Furthermore, metaViz can suggest alternative possible metaphors. For example, A CANDIDATE IS A THEORY: both candidates and theories can be tested, an individual usually supports one or another candidate or theory, different candidates and different theories often propose different solutions to current problems, etc. In this way, metaViz can support the questioning of common metaphors and the creative generation of novel, alternative metaphors.