Now on ScienceBlogs: Climate Cover-Up
What's Next in Public Engagement?
Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D, is a professor in the School of Communication at American University where his research focuses on the intersections between science, media, and politics. E-MAIL: nisbetmc@gmail.com
February 27, 2007
Category: Global Warming
As I've chronicled at this blog, the IPCC report was a massive failure as a communication moment. The inability of the IPCC report to break through to the wider public about the urgency of climate change is just more...
Posted by Matthew C. Nisbet at 5:07 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 25, 2007
Category: Stem Cell / Cloning Research
Last week marked the ten year anniversary of the announcement of the cloned sheep Dolly. While the U.S. press largely passed on the moment, the Canadian and British media paid much heavier attention. In an op-ed at Canada's Globe...
Posted by Matthew C. Nisbet at 5:05 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Entertainment Media
One of the great paradoxes of contemporary society is that Americans by way of the Internet and specialized cable TV channels have greater access to scientific information than at any other time in history, yet knowledge of science and...
Posted by Matthew C. Nisbet at 10:42 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 20, 2007
Category: Global Warming
The major news organizations, especially the big three cable news networks, need a crash courses in ethics. Given all the major issues taking place in the world, how can they continue to pander to the American public's most base instincts...
Posted by Matthew C. Nisbet at 4:07 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: FRAME: Economic Competitiveness
Where have you heard this one before? Back in September, Canada's Environment Minister John Baird echoed the predictions of a university economist when he claimed that if Canada were to meet its's 2008-12 Kyoto targets, it would require "a...
Posted by Matthew C. Nisbet at 10:22 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 16, 2007
Category: Global Warming
In the week following the Friday, Feb. 2 release of the Fourth IPCC report on global climate change, few if any Americans reported that global warming was the issue they were following most closely. Instead, the public turned its...
Posted by Matthew C. Nisbet at 3:27 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 14, 2007
Category: Blogging/New Media
At the beginning of the spring semester, I noted that the Political Communication Seminar at the University of Virginia and the English 12 course at UNC-Chapel Hill were making use of blogs in their course work, and were using Framing...
Posted by Matthew C. Nisbet at 1:49 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Blogging/New Media
Irony can be an effective persuasion tool. As pictured on the Drudge Report this morning with the headline: HEARING ON 'WARMING OF PLANET' CANCELED BECAUSE OF ICE STORM. The headline links to a Drudge posted press release, likely sent...
Posted by Matthew C. Nisbet at 8:25 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 13, 2007
Category: Blogging/New Media
Where once it was the province of against-the-establishment rebels and citizen media types, major institutions are now taking wide advantage of blogging technology to promote their message or to expand their audience. And it's not just major media outlets...
Posted by Matthew C. Nisbet at 5:00 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Just how tough is it to sustain news and thereby public attention to the problem of global warming? Exhibit A: The week after the release of the IPCC report, the issue failed to even crack the top five news...
Posted by Matthew C. Nisbet at 3:51 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
