Matthew Nisbet
Professor of Communication at Northeastern University.
nisbetmc
Posts by this author
July 15, 2009
When I was in graduate school at Cornell, David Kirby was a course mate while he was working on a post-doc in science studies. Kirby was re-training from his former field as a geneticist, researching the influence of science consultants on major motion pictures.
One of his conclusions--published…
July 12, 2009
Over at the liberal blog site Daily Kos, the anonymous "Dark Syde" reviews the book Unscientific America. The review, unfortunately, echoes the all-too-common "fall from grace narrative" about the place of science in American society, a distracting if not harmful myth that we discuss in a…
July 10, 2009
Over at MIT's Knight Science Journalism Tracker, the wise Charlie Petit has a great round-up of coverage of yesterday's Pew science survey. On what I described earlier today as a troubling "fall from grace" narrative in some reporting and commentary, Petit points to the obvious difficulties science…
July 10, 2009
When I was invited by the Pew team earlier this year to make suggestions about items and questions to measure in their recently released survey on science and the public, I suggested that Pew ask a variation of a question that they have used in the past that queries respondents on the types of…
July 9, 2009
Somewhat predictably, several pundits and commentators have framed Thursday's Pew survey as supporting an all too common yet misleading "fall from grace" narrative about the place of science in society.
These interpretations proclaim a "growing disconnect," "a dangerous divide," a "widening gulf"…
July 9, 2009
[UPDATE: See this follow up on media reaction to the report.]
The Pew Research Center released today a major new survey report documenting Americans' views of science and technology and comparing these lay perceptions to a representative sample of U.S. scientists who are members of AAAS.
As part…
July 8, 2009
A 1997 poster appearing in Central Park.
Perhaps the best commentary on the cultural reaction to Michael Jackson's death comes from the NY Times' columnist Bob Herbert. After describing meeting Jackson in the mid-1980s as one of the "creepier experiences" of his life, Herbert goes on to discuss…
July 7, 2009
Our recent article at Nature Biotechnology (PDF, news release) has generated attention Down Under, with coverage appearing at the Australian Broadcasting Service and The Australian newspaper.
Both outlets do a good job of reporting on the central themes of the article, especially The Australian,…
July 7, 2009
Over at the Columbia Journalism Review, Cristine Russell is back from the World Federation of Science Journalists conference and reports on a panel of leading editors who are generally optimistic about the future of science coverage at their respective news organizations.
Editors at the Times of…
July 2, 2009
If you are on Facebook, you have probably grown annoyed by the many causes and appeals that show up in your Notifications on a daily, if not, hourly basis. Like any new information technology, Facebook has generated a fair share of hype over its potential to "revolutionize" citizen participation…
July 1, 2009
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Many of you probably tuned in over the last week to the Confederations Cup tournament as the US national team pulled…
June 30, 2009
In the latest issue of the journal Public Understanding of Science, Lorraine Whitmarsh from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK, publishes a study that finds that the terms "climate change" versus "global warming" matter to public perceptions. In a mail survey of a…
June 29, 2009
Timed with the World Federation of Science Journalists meeting in London, Nature magazine has put together a selection of recent articles focusing on journalism and science communication. The selection includes our recent article at Nature Biotechnology (PDF, news release).
June 28, 2009
[Contributed by guest blogger, Katherine Broendel]
The last time I posted, I wrote about the effects pornography and violent pornography may have on viewers' perspectives of women and sexual violence. Rather than stating an opinion, I provided a brief review of some of the studies I read as…
June 25, 2009
I am in beautiful Madison, Wisconsin today to give this lecture at 7pm on campus. The talk is free and open to the public.
June 22, 2009
In the lead editorial at Science last week, Harvard University's Cristine Russell discusses the many emerging possibilities in science journalism. It's a mistake to frame current events as a "crisis," correctly explains Russell, but rather to look at trends as an opportunity to diversify, innovate…
June 19, 2009
Framing food problems as a matter of public accountability and sinister corporate control.
As I wrote earlier this week, the new documentary Food Inc. has the potential to significantly boost the public profile of a range of food-related problems, connecting them together under the perceptual…
June 17, 2009
Newspapers--and their localized science and environmental coverage--might be in decline across the U.S., but new ethnic media outlets, many of them in languages other than English, are thriving.
These outlets will be centrally important for reaching broader audiences with localized and relevant…
June 17, 2009
MIT Knight Science Journalism Tracker has posted a PDF version of the Nature Biotechnology article. Previously, the article has only been available to readers with an institutional subscription. See also the news release.
June 17, 2009
Next week on Thursday, June 25 I will be visiting one of my favorite cities Madison, Wisconsin to give a lecture titled "What's Next for Science Communication?" It's part of a summer speaker series sponsored by the Dept. of Life Sciences Communication and the Holtz Center on Science and…
June 17, 2009
Readers in the DC area will definitely want to check out the upcoming event on June 23 at the National Academies. Details are posted below. I hope to be able to attend and to report back on some collected remarks.
It will be interesting to compare the thoughts of the assembled practitioners with…
June 16, 2009
Over at the NY Times' Dot Earth, Andrew Revkin has started a conversation with readers on the merits of framing as applied to climate change communication. Revkin takes as a point of departure the Seed magazine roundtable on the issue published a few weeks back. Revkin adds to the mix another voice…
June 16, 2009
Over the past decade, issues such as fast food and obesity, organics and pesticides, genetic engineering, and factory farming have each captured their share of attention from engaged citizens and advocacy groups. Focusing events, such as the 2008 factory farming ballot initiative in California or…
June 15, 2009
I am back from an excellent science journalism conference in Denmark and will have more to say on the meeting which highlighted several issues that speak directly to challenges faced here in the US. But for now, I wanted to return to our Commentary article "Science Communication Re-Considered"…
June 15, 2009
The Associated Press announced Friday that it had entered into a partnership with four non-profit investigative journalism organizations to distribute their work to more than 1,500 American newspapers who are AP members.
As I commented Friday over at Science Journalism Tracker, the model developed…
June 9, 2009
In this month's issue of Nature Biotechnology, I join with other authors to suggest several bold new initiatives in science communication and journalism. The Commentary article includes an overview of key issues and trends in the field and closes with a series of specific recommendations.
The…
June 7, 2009
[Contributed by guest blogger Katherine Broendel]
Before I begin writing about what my research has found regarding the framing of sexual violence in the media, I'd like to take a moment to define some of the parameters of my research. I focused my attention on sexual violence committed against…
June 5, 2009
I head to Stockholm and Copenhagen today where on Wednesday I will be participating in a unique conference organized by the Danish Science Journalists Association. The focus is on many of the central themes discussed at this blog including framing, public engagement, the future of science…
June 4, 2009
Hello, I'm Katherine Broendel, and I will be guest blogging this month about sexual violence. As Matt mentioned in a previous post, I am a Master's degree candidate in Public Communication at American University, and I wrote my capstone (thesis) on the framing of sexual violence in the media. The…
June 4, 2009
Next week there will be big news on the science communication front. In anticipation, I was just going back over some things that I have written on the topic over the past decade. I ran across an essay I wrote for Skeptical Inquirer from 2003, which I posted below the fold. The essay puts into…