Matthew Nisbet
Professor of Communication at Northeastern University.
nisbetmc
Posts by this author
June 28, 2006
A pre-publication release of a study I did with Kirby Goidel of LSU is now available at the website of the journal POLITICAL BEHAVIOR. Analyzing national survey data collected in 2003, the study finds that the most consistent predictor of citizen activism in the stem cell debate (measured as…
June 27, 2006
I was lucky enough to snag a ticket to see Superman Returns tonight at the Uptown Theater in Cleveland Park. Here is the scoop, without spoiling the movie: Superman foils a plot by Luthor to create a new Fortress of Solitude-like continent in the middle of the North Atlantic. As Luthor explains…
June 27, 2006
In the recent issue of The NY Review of Books, James Hansen pens a must-read review of several recent books on climate change, and includes a review of Gore's Inconvenient Truth.
Hansen on the film:
The movie seems to me powerful and the book complements it, adding useful explanations. It is hard…
June 27, 2006
Frank Luntz, GOP pollster and architect of the Republican message strategy on global warming, said last night in a documentary on CBC that he has changed his position on global warming, and now accepts the scientific evidence. Go here for more and to see archived video. Below is a transcript from…
June 27, 2006
With the Supreme Court deciding yesterday to hear a case challenging the Bush administration's enforcement of the Clean Air Act (Times coverage here, Post here), the Center for American Progress has issued the following Talking Points memo framing the issue of climate change around PUBLIC…
June 26, 2006
On June 15, the day I moved from Columbus to DC, I listened during my drive out here to a few hours of Rush Limbaugh. On his program he discussed a story in the Boston Globe that outlined the major points of the election platform for Congressional democrats, dubbed a "New Direction for America." I…
June 26, 2006
I've been meaning to start blogging about this site launched last week, and as it turns out, I just received this press release via email. I am sure I will be coming back to the site with posts this week and in coming months. Definitely a new relevant resource on framing to check out. Below is…
June 26, 2006
The real test as to whether Gore's Inconvenient Truth can capture a mass audience takes place over the next two weeks. The film opened in a 100 new theaters this past weekend, bringing its total to 514 theaters across 40 cities. (By comparison, the comedy Nacho Libre played in over 3,000 theaters…
June 25, 2006
Ian Wilmut appeared on NPR's Science Friday this past week to promote his new book and to discuss developments in human cloning. Below are a few highlights from the transcript. Go here for the full archived audio.
On International Regulation and the Possibility of Reproductive Human Cloning…
June 23, 2006
Buried in today's NYTimes Business section is a report on the vote yesterday by the U.S. House to permanently eliminate the estate tax for about 99.7 percent of all families and reduce tax rates for the few who still faced a bill. Regardless of your partisan affiliation, if you have an appreciation…
June 22, 2006
Yesterday Peter Whoriskey of the WPost detailed the weaknesses in the dike surrounding Lake Okeechobee in Florida. If the dike failed, as might happen if a major hurricane hit the region, the lake would flood the surrounding area, affecting about 40,000 residents.
I have spotted a few of these…
June 22, 2006
Yesterday, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank detailed the GOP's effort to frame the debate over a pull out from Iraq, as a decision to "cut and run." The phrase has become almost ubiquitous, and purposely so. It's the perfect example of a "frame device," a slogan or catchphrase that captures the…
June 22, 2006
I ran across this excellent short ten-minute film highlighting the persistent negative stereotypes of Arabs in Hollywood film and television. Watch it. Definitely worth checking out.
According to the film site, "out of 1000 films that have Arab and Muslim characters (from the year 1896 to 2000…
June 21, 2006
In this news release from Focus on the Family, Senator Sam Brownback pushes the SCIENTIFIC UNCERTAINTY frame in arguing against the Spector-Castle ESC bill, claiming that ESC is "speculative" science and diverts funding from research on adult stem cell sources. To emphasize the message, Brownback…
June 18, 2006
It's rare in media coverage to see a focus on the PATENTS/PROPERTY RIGHTS dimension of stem cell research, even though patents are the engine driving research. But this weekend, the Wisconsin State Journal spotlights a developing dispute between the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and…
June 12, 2006
The "Economic Competitiveness" frame is one of the dominate ways that proponents of science try to rally public support for investment. Historically, first in the context of the Cold War, and now in the context of globalization, American science has warned that the U.S. is falling behind other…
June 12, 2006
What research would I be focused on if I weren't currently studying the interactions between science, media, and politics? It would have to be the role of the news and entertainment media in shaping international public opinion about the U.S., what pundits and journalists commonly refer to as the "…
June 12, 2006
Over the weekend, there was a Bigfoot sighting near my parents' house in Clarence, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. The sighting is complete with the following photograph. See how local TV news covered it. The Bigfoot myth continues to be a favorite of American culture. For more on Bigfoot, see…
June 9, 2006
In 2004 when The Day After Tomorrow hit theaters, I wrote this column evaluating its possible impacts. Later, Anthony Leiserowitz followed with a study appearing in Environment magazine assessing the public and media impact of the film.
As other studies have shown with films such as Fahrenheit…
June 8, 2006
In my latest Science and the Media web column at Skeptical Inquirer Online, I take a look at the current debate over re-investment in nuclear energy as a means to curb greenhouse gas emissions and shift the country towards energy independence. I show that the same frames used in the nuclear energy…