Matthew Nisbet
Professor of Communication at Northeastern University.
nisbetmc
Posts by this author
January 3, 2007
Time out for a bit of soft journalism....Variety reports that after an eighteen year wait, Indiana Jones 4 is going into production and will be released in May 2008.
After years of languishing in development, the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise is finally moving ahead, as…
January 2, 2007
On YouTube over the weekend, John Edwards announced his candidacy for president. Apart from his "Two Americas" theme on economic and racial justice, science issues stand as a secondary part of his platform.
On ABC News This Week, Edwards was asked by host George Stephanopoulos about his…
January 2, 2007
Over at Nanopublic, Dietram Scheufele reminds me of something I overlooked last week when I spotlighted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's framing of environmental issues as a public health matter. According to the Humvee Governor, not only is California's leadership on global warming similar to the…
January 2, 2007
Citizens are cognitive misers, meaning they rely on images and short cuts rather than knowledge to make up their minds about issues. It might run counter to democratic ideals and what scientists might prefer, but it's reality. One of the dominant heuristics is humor, as evidenced by the…
January 2, 2007
Over the weekend, Andrew Revkin at the NY Times wrote a very timely and important peice detailing the growing unease among many scientists and policy experts with the new "normal' in the framing of global warming by environmental advocates, journalists, and even some scientists. This new frame I…
January 2, 2007
Looks like the the folks at the Project for Excellence in Journalism are about to launch a very interesting and much needed monthly media content analysis. Funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, this type of "industrial"-size quantitative analysis of news trends has been talked about for a long time…
January 1, 2007
In DC over the weekend, the conversational buzz at coffee shops, wine bars, and holiday parties has focused on the graphic reports of Saddam Hussein's execution. Friends from both sides of the political fence are using words like "banal," "barbaric," "creepy," and "grotesque" to describe their…
December 30, 2006
In more than 20 articles over the past year, a team of New York Times reporters and editors have detailed many of the intersections between energy policy and the environment.
It's a tough issue to cover since it doesn't fit neatly any single traditional news beat. In fact, it spans many beats…
December 29, 2006
In the 1976 presidential campaign, Ford used political ads featuring endorsements from Evangelical leaders to counter Jimmy Carter's image of piety and to turn the Baptist governor's famous Playboy interview against him. Today, with all the focus on religion and politics, a political ad of this…
December 29, 2006
The game is afoot to define the presidency of Gerald Ford. The dominant narrative from the mainstream media is that Ford was the "Great Healer," an extinct species of bi-partisan statesman who guided the country through the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and the pullout from Vietnam.
The…
December 26, 2006
In one of the strongest declarations I've seen from a major newspaper editorial board, the San Jose Mercury News calls on Congress in 2007 to enact major legislation to deal with global warming:
Climate change at crisis level
EVERYONE -- PUBLIC AND PRIVATE -- MUST ACT TO AVOID CATASTROPHE
Mercury…
December 25, 2006
After being named Time magazine's Person of the Year, I've updated my CV. Frank Rich in the Sunday Times glows with similar faux enthusiasm for the mag's cyber-cheerleading, as does Jon Stewart over at the Daily Show, just press play above.
Writes Rich:
As our country sinks deeper into a…
December 24, 2006
The Washington Post chronicles Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to frame his environmentalism in "public health" terms. The Governerator explains his position in ways only he can. For example, he compares California's lead on global warming to the state's pivotal role in popularizing bodybuilding…
December 19, 2006
The Washington Post profiles Rudy Giuliani's prospects for the GOP nomination. If "America's Mayor" has to bolster his support from conservatives, on which social issues is it easiest for Giuliani to move to the right?
Given his past record as mayor of NYC , it will be difficult for him to shift…
December 18, 2006
ScienceBlogs readers are hipsters. So I just wanted to add to the buzz about the new video for the U2 single "Window in the Skies." Definitely an instant classic. Watch it here. Just press play.
December 18, 2006
This week, Time magazine names all of us as "Person of the Year." According to Time's editors, in this Web 2.0 era of digital media, average netizens are transforming society in powerful ways, changing politics, community, and personal lives for the better.
"You control the media now!" declares…
December 18, 2006
For those closely watching Gov. Mitt Romney's presidential prospects, and what a Romney presidency might look like in terms of science-related policy questions such as stem cell research, abstinence education, and emergency contraception, you will want to check out this Sunday Boston Globe article…
December 16, 2006
BBC NEWS CAPTION: "There is heated debate about the ethics of using stem cells"
What's wrong with this picture and caption?
As the BBC reports the horrifying discovery that healthy babies in the Ukraine may have been killed for body parts, including stem cells derived from bone marrow, the news…
December 13, 2006
There's nothing new about politicians using entertainment outlets to promote their presidential aspirations. In 1960, both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon appeared on Jack Parr's Tonight Show. Nixon even played the piano. Yet it was Bill Clinton with his saxophone playing 1992 appearance on…
December 13, 2006
The recent retreat of Arctic sea ice is likely to accelerate so rapidly that the Arctic Ocean could become nearly devoid of ice during summertime as early as 2040, according to new research published in the December 12 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. The study, by a team of scientists from…
December 5, 2006
A few readers know that I originally hail from outside of Buffalo, New York, home to some of the best hunting and fly fishing in the country. Recently my younger brother Drew launched the Dreams of Steele blog exploring the science and passion of fishing and hunting in the Upstate New York region…
December 5, 2006
Parita Shah from the Center for Genetics and Society has an interesting op-ed in the Mercury News reflecting on the campaign tactics used by both sides this last election cycle to argue their case on stem cell research. Here's an excerpt from the Mercury News op-ed.
Whether or not the issue…
December 4, 2006
The Associated Press reports that outgoing MA Gov. Mitt Romney has appointed Aaron D'Elia, a state budget director with no formal scientific background, to be executive director of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, an agency created by the legislature to distribute state funding for stem…
December 3, 2006
Over at the "ideas site" World Changing, David Zaks offers up an interview with the NY Times' Andrew Revkin. As I've written on this blog before, Revkin is one of the top science writers in the business, and the country's leading journalist covering climate change. For ScienceBlogs readers, the…
December 3, 2006
It's year six of your presidency, and historians are already debating whether you are the worst U.S. leader in history. Can a new communication strategy help repair your reputation?
At the Washington Post, Douglas Brinkley, Eric Foner, Vincent Cannato, Michael Lind, and David Greenberg place…
December 1, 2006
This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that Americans are using the Internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships.
For many college students, having grown up "online…
December 1, 2006
This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that Americans are using the Internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships.
For many college students, having grown up "online…
November 27, 2006
A few readers have written in to ask whether tomorrow's AMS presentation will be recorded. My answer is "I don't know," but I will let everyone know if and when a recording is available. In the meantime, back in the spring I appeared on the Point of Inquiry program to talk about the framing of…
November 27, 2006
Last weekend, I was at the annual meetings of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research, where I met up with longtime collaborators Dietram Scheufele and Dominique Brossard. Along with Sharon Dunwoody, the three faculty members at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have launched the…
November 27, 2006
Readers of FRAMING SCIENCE who work in downtown DC or on Capitol Hill may want to take an extended lunch break tomorrow to check out this American Meteorological Society briefing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rm. 106, featuring one of your favorite bloggers. ;-)
The Divide between…