Matthew Nisbet
Professor of Communication at Northeastern University.
nisbetmc
Posts by this author
April 8, 2009
Readers of this blog should find the arguments in Tom Friedman's column today familiar. On climate change, Friedman argues that it's time to switch focus from cap and trade to a carbon tax, a policy that most Americans can understand.
But switching policy is not enough, you also have to switch the…
April 7, 2009
Obama Girl, the viral video vixen, is creating buzz again, this time as part of a coordinated public engagement campaign on energy and climate change. Check out the rap video above and then go over to The Energy Collective where Mark Gunther has the details and an audio interview with the campaign…
April 2, 2009
This week's NY Times magazine runs a cover story by Nicholas Dawidoff on Freeman Dyson and his doubts about the urgency of climate change. Many critics have decried the article as another leading example of false journalistic balance.
Yet I think there are much deeper issues at play here. On one…
April 1, 2009
For those unable to attend next week's talk at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, there is a call in number to listen to the presentation and discussion. See details on the talk here. Audio will also follow online.
Also if you are a non-NASA staff member and would like to attend, here are the…
March 31, 2009
For readers in Denmark, Sweden, and Germany intrigued by the discussion over the past few days at Scienceblogs, the Danish Association of Science Journalists will be focusing on these exact same topics at their upcoming June meetings. Register at the site and see an agenda of speakers, with the…
March 31, 2009
On April 8 at noon, I will be giving a talk on climate change communication at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. Below are the details. The talk is open to all NASA staff as well as the public.
Communicating Climate Change: Why Frames Matter to Public Engagement
Bldg 8,…
March 29, 2009
When pundits like Richard Dawkins use the trust and authority granted them as scientists to denigrate religious publics, is it unethical?
On issues such as climate change, nanotechnology, and evolution, research in the area of framing is being used to design and plan communication initiatives and…
March 12, 2009
The struggles of the science beat at local newspapers have little or nothing to do with scientific illiteracy or public respect for science and much more to do with the economic climate and a more general and profound absence of public appreciation for the role of the press in civic life. Consider…
March 12, 2009
Next week on Thursday at noon I will be in Edmonton, Canada delivering the annual Picard Lecture at the University of Alberta's Health Law Institute. More information on the presentation "Science Communication at a Crossroads: Promising Directions, Lingering Distractions" can be found here. The…
March 11, 2009
A Gallup survey report released yesterday finds that a record 41% of Americans--and 66% of Republicans--now say that news reports of climate change are exaggerated. I first spotted this troubling trend in a 2007 paper analyzing twenty years of public opinion about climate change. This latest…
March 11, 2009
At the "three cultures summit" this past weekend in Oregon, I had the opportunity to meet Hank Green, creator of the immensely popular EcoGeek blog and YouTube auteur of the successful Vlogbrothers series.
Hank's creative work raises the question I posed at this blog last year. Specifically, on…
March 10, 2009
The BiPartisan Policy Center has announced a Blue Ribbon panel that will issue recommendations intended to inform Obama's call for a Memorandum on Scientific Integrity.
Importantly, the panel will study and address an important theme that continues to re-occur in the so-called "science wars": what…
March 10, 2009
This past weekend, a diversity of scholars and experts were called to Oregon for what might be described as a "three cultures summit" on climate change. The two-day deliberation included scientists, philosophers, poets, writers, social scientists, and filmmakers. Our focus, as Oregon State…
March 9, 2009
Good news on the science beat front. Cristine Russell at the Columbia Journalism Review has the details on an innovative move by the Washington Post to consolidate coverage of science, the environment, and health under one editor.
At The Three Cultures Summit on Climate Change, What Scientists Want to Learn From Social Scientists
March 6, 2009
I'm spending the weekend in Oregon at an outpost on the edge of the Columbia River Valley. I'm in town for a unique three cultures summit on climate change, a workshop that brings together scientists, social scientists, philosophers, poets, and artists to discuss strategies and methods for public…
March 5, 2009
I'm blogging from Chicago's O'Hare airport, on my way to Portland to participate in a unique summit bringing together philosophers, scientists, social scientists, poets, filmmakers, and artists to consider new strategies for shifting the popular zeitgeist on sustainability and climate change. The…
March 5, 2009
At ClimateWire, one of the new innovative models for science journalism, Christa Marshall has a great feature on how language will shape the pending political battle over cap and trade legislation.
The syndicated story is picked up by NY Times.com and features insights from George Lakoff, Stanford…
March 3, 2009
It's out today, U2's latest album, rock like only they can do it. Check it out from the recent Brit Awards.
March 2, 2009
Over the past decade, best-selling books such as Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point have told compelling stories of how marketers and political consultants use "influentials," "mavens," "connectors," and "navigators" to sell products and win elections. In similar fashion, following the 2008…
February 26, 2009
In the U.S., there is often the false assumption that Europeans are somehow more engaged and supportive of science than Americans. Yet, as I discuss in several studies and as I have written about in articles, instead of science literacy, the same generalizable interaction between values, social…
February 25, 2009
Last night in his State of the Union address, Obama asked Congress to send him a bill that caps carbon emissions, with the president framing the matter primarily in the context of economic recovery and energy innovation:
"But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our…
February 24, 2009
Back in January, Desmog blog noted what they dubbed a "troubling" trend online, plotting a rise in mentions of "global warming + hoax." The graph was construed as evidence of growing strength for the climate skeptic movement.
At the time I observed to a few colleagues that the graph probably also…
February 23, 2009
Shankar Vendantam's story headlined "Climate Fears Are Driving 'Ecomigration' Across the Globe" runs on the front page at the Washington Post today. It's not often that climate change is a front-pager at the NY Times or the WPost, making it important to understand the types of narratives that…
February 20, 2009
Not surprisingly, Carl Safina's Feb. 10 essay at the NY Times calling for an end to Darwin worship generated a fair amount of criticism.
Safina's suggestion to frame information in terms of the nature and benefits of evolutionary science rather than the more traditional "great man of science"…
February 19, 2009
A new study at the journal Risk Analysis examines the factors shaping public perceptions of nuclear energy and provides important clues about how to effectively mobilize public support for expanded investment in the technology. (See end of post.)
The study analyzes data from 1997, but the relative…
February 18, 2009
Just how important is public communication? Presidential Science Adviser John Holdren believes that scientists should devote 10% of their time to talking to the public about matters of science and policy, especially in the area of energy and climate. That's what he urged in the conclusion to his…
February 18, 2009
There's a must read Shorenstein Center white paper out by Time magazine contributor Eric Pooley, who spent Fall 2008 at Harvard researching how the news media covered the run up to the vote on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (paper, press release, Slate commentary).
Note Pooley's…
February 17, 2009
Sometimes I just don't get it. Whether it is climate change, evolution, or vaccination, the more literal minded among science bloggers and pundits typically blame science journalists for breakdowns in public communication.
Yet as I discuss in a forthcoming article at Skeptical Inquirer magazine,…
February 16, 2009
The Obama administration had a rough start to its communication strategy on the stimulus plan, going from no message to a catastrophe frame, only at the last minute shifting to a more effective focus on localized benefits and impacts. If the Stimulus plan was a tough challenge to communicate,…
February 12, 2009
For more than a decade, Rick Weiss covered science (and its politics) for the Washington Post. When he left the paper last year, the news organization lost one of the top two or three science journalists in the business and perhaps the very best at covering the intersections of biomedical research…