Matthew Nisbet
Professor of Communication at Northeastern University.
nisbetmc
Posts by this author
May 17, 2007
Cities like Cambridge, MA, Madison, WI and Berkeley, CA aren't the only places in the world vying to brand themselves as 21st century centers of innovation. This week, the BBC series The Changing World features a two part episode on cities as science hot spots. Listen here.
What all of these…
May 17, 2007
In a segment from the recent Frontline special "Hot Politics," GOP pollster Frank Luntz explains his 1997/1998 memo that became the playbook for how conservatives like President Bush and Senator James Inhofe redefined climate change as really a matter of "scientific uncertainty" and "unfair…
May 17, 2007
On May 3, former House Science Committee chair Sherwood Boehlert gave the distinguished AAAS Carey Lecture. It recently came to our attention that Boehlert spent a significant chunk of the speech commenting on our Framing Science thesis published at Science and elaborated upon at the Washington…
May 17, 2007
UWisc-Madison is joining Harvard and Scotland's University of Edinburgh by investing in a new stem cell research facility that promote cross-disciplinary collaborations. Tonight, in conjunction with a speech by Edinburgh scientist Ian Wilmut, the university will announce the new virtual center…
May 17, 2007
I've got my DVR set to 830pm EST tonight in order to record in high definition the world television premiere of Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus.
This past spring, I contributed to a Center for Social Media and Ford Foundation report evaluating the social impact of…
May 16, 2007
Monday evening at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, Chris Mooney and I gave our first DC-area Speaking Science 2.0 presentation. We have details as pictures over at our new Speaking Science Web site. Inspired by Al Gore, Chris and I have also bought emission…
May 11, 2007
I'm late to this news feature that appeared two weeks ago at the journal Cell, as others here at ScienceBlogs have already posted on the article. Quoted below is the section of the article that focuses on our Framing Science thesis and its relevance to science blogging:
The concept of scientists…
May 9, 2007
How do you activate an otherwise disinterested Republican base on the issue of global warming? As we argued in our Policy Forum article at Science, two possible frames are to recast the issue as really a matter of moral duty or alternatively as an issue that might promote increased profits from…
May 8, 2007
On Monday, we will be doing our first Speaking Science 2.0 presentation for the DC-area community as part of the annual meetings of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. The talk is open to the public, so we hope several inside-the-Beltway readers are able to make it out. (It follows…
May 8, 2007
In her book Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion, William & Mary anthropology professor Barbara J. King argues that religion is not so much a cognitively-derived belief system but rather rooted in social/emotional connections and actions. She studies chimpanzees and…
May 7, 2007
With the semester finally winding down, over the weekend, I updated the tabs "What is Framing?" and "Popular Science vs. Framing." These new sections of my blog explain in detail research on framing and media influence and also present a generalizable typology of frames that re-appear across…
May 7, 2007
Even before the publication of our Science and Washington Post commentaries, Chris and I were asked to do a number of joint talks in various cities. As attention grew to our Framing Science thesis, we decided to formally launch a Web site devoted to the arguments raised in these articles and to…
May 4, 2007
Posted from La Guardia airport in transit to a talk at Cornell University. Will have more comments this weekend.
April 27, 2007
On Friday, May 4, I will be back at my doctoral alma mater to give the following presentation sponsored by the Dept. of Communication. Readers at Cornell or in the area are welcome to turn out. Chris Mooney and I will have an announcement about other forthcoming talks very soon.
Framing Science…
April 26, 2007
As we argue in our Framing Science thesis, in order to engage a religiously diverse public on pressing problems like climate change, it's important to offer positive and personally meaningful messages.
Our argument is cited and repeated today in a letter in the latest issue of Science written by…
April 25, 2007
In an op-ed today at the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia's paper of record, Chris Mooney weighs in with more on our framing science thesis. Chris has been on the road in Australia the past few weeks, talking about his forthcoming book as well as our arguments relative to effective science…
April 25, 2007
How do you influence conservative media outlets to take climate change seriously, re-casting the issue in a light that connects to their conservative audiences?
You got it: Framing.
It's a strategy that two scientists apply today in an op-ed published at the Washington Times. Bryan K. Mignone, a…
April 24, 2007
Why is it so important to provide the wider American public with readily available and scientifically accurate "frames" that re-package complex issues in ways that make them personally meaningful and interesting?
A recent Pew study comparing survey findings across decades emphasizes one major…
April 24, 2007
This spring in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships. (See reading list.)
For many college…
April 24, 2007
This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships. (Go here for reading list.)
For many…
April 20, 2007
The Point of Inquiry podcast is produced by the Center for Inquiry-Transnational and averages 60,000 listeners a week.
In this week's show, host DJ Grothe and I engage in a lively forty-five minute discussion. You can listen here.
I offer more details on:
--> the nature of framing and media…
April 18, 2007
If anyone should understand how to effectively communicate with the broader public about teaching evolution in schools, it's Dr. Steve Case. He's assistant director of the Center for Science Education at the University of Kansas and was co-chair of the science standards committee for the state of…
April 18, 2007
A small yet very vocal contingent of critics continue to ferociously attack our Framing Science thesis.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are left wondering why.
Here are two observations posted today by fellow ScienceBloggers.
The immensely popular "Orac," the nom de blog of a surgeon/scientist offers…
April 18, 2007
The transcript of the interview I did last week at NPR's On the Media is now available. In the interview, I restate exactly what we argued first at Science and then at the WPost. It's worth reading. I've bolded parts of key sentences.
First, I emphasize, as we do in our published commentaries,…
April 17, 2007
To be honest, I hadn't seen the online program Bloggingheads.tv before. But today they offer a pretty substantive discussion of our Framing Science thesis. Apparently the host agrees with us. His co-host misunderstands our goals for communication and the research on framing and media influence…
April 17, 2007
NPR's Richard Harris reports on the UN National Security Council's attempt to recast global warming as really a matter of national and global security.
Trinifar has all the details and analysis. The mysterious one also has a related post up on yesterday's announcement by U.S. military brass that…
April 17, 2007
The Discovery Institute have a blog post up commenting on our WPost Outlook article.
Given this latest response to our Framing Science thesis, I wanted to take time out from an incredibly busy week to once again describe framing and its implications for successful science communication.
As I…
April 15, 2007
Bora continues to play a very important role in synthesizing and interpreting the whole strange chorus that seems to be going on in reaction to our Framing Science thesis. In his latest post, I couldn't have stated it better myself. He definitely gets it. He captures pretty much everything that…
April 15, 2007
Over at Chris Mooney's Intersection, there is a lively discussion going-on of our Washington Post article.
I thought this comment was especially interesting, from scientist-turned-filmmaker Randy Olson, director of Flock of Dodos, (airing next month on Showtime).
I'm a big fan of Randy. He's a…
April 14, 2007
In an article in the Sunday Outlook section of the Washington Post, we advance the arguments offered in our Science Policy Forum commentary. We also respond directly to some of the questions raised over the last week at several blogs. For more, listen to this segment from NPR's On the Media.…