Matthew Nisbet
Professor of Communication at Northeastern University.
nisbetmc
Posts by this author
August 9, 2007
I'm back in DC after spending the previous two weeks in San Francisco as an Osher Fellow at The Exploratorium. It was my second visit this year to the world's greatest science center. Each time I go out there I tell my friends that I feel like Tom Friedman in The World is Flat, trading ideas with…
August 9, 2007
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the best selling books of the past decade have been converted into a video game for kids and young adults. That's right, available in October, is Left Behind: Eternal Forces. Max Blumenthal has a post on the game and its use as part of a planned Evangelical…
August 7, 2007
On Sunday, the LA Times ran two major feature articles on the emerging influence and power of documentary film. One article contrasted the works of Michael Moore and Ken Burns. The other feature explores the meaning of objectivity across the many emerging documentary genres.
For anyone who has…
August 7, 2007
Talk about facilitating incidental exposure to science. The Boston Globe explains how David Beckham is able to curl a soccer ball around an 8 man wide wall. Hat tip to Knight Science Tracker.
August 6, 2007
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has launched an ambitious new public outreach campaign that echoes many of the strategies I think science organizations and institutions can use to strengthen their public ties. The campaign recognizes that while public broadcasting has a mission to inform,…
August 6, 2007
Are you an information technology optimist or skeptic? Chances are, if you are a regular blog reader or poster, you fall in the former category. Yet ever feel like all that time you spend online might be displacing time spent in more meaningful face-to-face interactions? Are the social…
August 5, 2007
The NY Times has the dish on perhaps the final tragedy in the fall of Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk. Apparently Hwang's lab was the first to derive stem cells from parthenogenesis, or virgin birth, meaning they were derived from an unfertilized egg. "It could have been a seminal…
August 4, 2007
Back in November, when Missouri passed a constitutional amendment protecting the ability of scientists to conduct embryonic stem cell research in the state, it was heralded as one more political victory for science, and a sign that even in the Midwest, proponents had turned the corner on…
August 3, 2007
The AP reports that organizers of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Austria next month are offering the faithful a foretaste: daily cell phone text messages with quotes from the pontiff. The Archdiocese of Vienna said the service, which began Sunday and will continue through the pope's Sept. 7-9 visit…
August 3, 2007
In the 2004 election, the great majority of voters didn't deliberate the specific policy positions of the candidates and then make an informed choice. Instead, in order to make up their minds, the miserly public relied heavily on "low information signals" such as likability and perceived character…
August 3, 2007
As I've documented several times here at Framing Science, despite record amounts of news attention to climate change, the issue has often been eclipsed by coverage of "Paris Nicole Smith" and other celebrity scandals. So who is to blame for the skewed priorities of the press?
In a survey out this…
August 2, 2007
The philosopher Paul Kurtz has published a new position booklet that addresses much of what I have been arguing is missing--and so deeply troubling--about the New Atheist movement. Below is a press release from the Council for Secular Humanism.
Secular Humanism's Elder Statesman Responds to "The…
July 31, 2007
Last week I posted on the "Misunderstood Meanings of Science Literacy," noting that scientists, policymakers, and journalists tend to narrowly focus on the recall of facts about science as the most important dimension of knowledge. Usually this dimension of knowledge is tested in quiz like survey…
July 31, 2007
In journalism, professional norms favor telling gripping stories about individuals and places. Applied to the debate over global warming, many journalists believe that if they can recast the complex issue in terms of familiar characters and local places, they can activate greater public concern…
July 30, 2007
Has the effort by liberals to re-brand themselves as progressives been successful? What about Republicans who no longer describe themselves as a conservative but rather as a "Reagan Republican"? Rasmussen released a survey last week that reveals some interesting findings:
Just 20% said they…
July 30, 2007
Gore's Live Earth concert series was supposed to catalyze American public attention around the problem of global warming, but did it? Polling data is not yet available regarding the concert's impact on American audiences, but we do have data relative to the concert's influence on the U.S. news…
July 27, 2007
Gallup has released an analysis of how support for various presidential candidates breaks down by church attendance. Somewhat surprisingly, in a general election match up, Hillary and Rudy are neck and neck among non-church going whites.
Most of this aggregate split is attributable to the…
July 27, 2007
Oxford University Press has published a new edited volume featuring research on public opinion and media coverage of the plant biotech debate in the US, Europe, Africa, India,and Brazil. The volume is edited by Dominique Brossard and James Shanahan, professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison…
July 25, 2007
As I've argued at this blog many times and in our article at Science, defining evolution in terms of medical progress is probably the best way to translate its' importance to a wider American public. Back in February, PLOS Biology published a revealing study where the authors strongly agree. In…
July 23, 2007
Big Tobacco.
Big Oil.
Big Pharma.
Big Biotech.
Big Nanotech?
Each of these phrases are examples of frame devices, words that act like triggers in activating underlying cultural meanings.
In fact, these frame devices instantly communicate the public accountability frame: Who benefits? Who controls…
July 19, 2007
Pew has released an analysis of the most frequently used words at the most popular sections of the presidential candidate Web sites, their candidate biographies. The findings are somewhat surprising, in that candidates overwhelmingly avoid discussing God, religion, or morality. Far less…
July 19, 2007
Last week, analysts at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty released a 70 page analysis of the strategies, tactics, and messages of the Sunni insurgent propaganda campaign. It's the most interesting thing I've read in some time. Check out the full report, summary below, and listen above to an…
July 17, 2007
As I've argued, one of the reasons I find the New Atheist PR campaign so troubling is that it is has radicalized a movement that feeds on anger and fear and that offers little more than complaints and attacks. New Atheism turns on a binary discourse of us vs. them. In the rhetoric of the New…
July 17, 2007
As part of their conversation series with scientists, the NY Times this week runs an interview with Harvard's Eric Mazur featuring the headline "Using the 'Beauties of Physics' to Conquer Science Illiteracy."
Mazur discusses his teaching approach in his physics course, stating that his goal is to…
July 16, 2007
The Sunday Washington Post leads with a story that greenhouse gas mitigation proposals in Congress are likely to stall, in part because several key lawmakers believe (or at least claim) that the public will not support the economic impacts associated with the proposals.
Michigan Democrat John…
July 15, 2007
The Center for American Progress has released a valuable analysis of the factors that account for the huge ideological imbalance in political talk radio. Here's what they pinpoint as the driving forces:
Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result…
July 12, 2007
Pew has released a survey analysis comparing American Muslims to other American religious groups, comparing levels of religious intensity, political identification, and policy preferences. I summarize and quote from some of the key findings below.
Muslims account for less than one percent of the…
July 5, 2007
In an essay at the Web site of Skeptic magazine, David Sloan Wilson, author of Darwin's Cathedral, concludes that when it comes to a scientific understanding of religion, Dawkins is "just another angry atheist, trading on his reputation as an evolutionist and spokesperson for science to vent his…
July 3, 2007
Across the Atlantic, it's a parallel universe when it comes to a focus on framing and its political uses. While here in the States, liberals have decried the use of framing tactics by conservatives to shift the political landscape, it was Tony Blair's New Labour government that is credited with…
June 30, 2007
Chris Mooney's Storm World is reviewed in Sunday's edition of the NY Times, a major moment for any author since the attention will surely give a major boost to the book's profile and sales. Indeed, to date, the buzz about Chris' new book has been glowing.
(Full Disclosure: Currently on a joint…