nisbetmc | February 11, 2009I'm back in the office after a great event last night at the American Museum of Natural History. Close to 100 attendees came out to the magnificent venue for a panel discussion on media coverage of climate change. Not surprisingly, a majority of the attendees were journalists, journalism students, bloggers, or university and NGO-types working on climate change communication.
Last night's themes will be followed up on in two panels at the annual AAAS meetings in Chicago. At CJR's The Observatory, Curtis Brainard has the details:
Two other events will take place Friday at the annual meeting of…
nisbetmc | February 10, 2009In an essay today at the NY Times, Carl Safina pinpoints one of the lingering challenges in communicating about evolution: what he calls the "cult of Darwin." If we would only stop focusing so much on the man, and more on evolutionary science, then it might boost public understanding. (I will be discussing some of these issues as part of a spring lecture series on evolution held here in DC sponsored by the National Academies and NIH. Details.)
From Safina's essay:
Using phrases like "Darwinian selection" or "Darwinian evolution" implies there must be another kind of evolution at work, a…
nisbetmc | February 10, 2009For readers in the New York area, I will be on a panel tonight at the American Museum of Natural History, focusing on climate change and the news media. The panel starts at 630 and features Andrew Revkin of the NY Times, Bud Ward of the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media, Bill Blakemore of ABC News, and Diane Hawkins-Cox of CNN. Go here for more information.
nisbetmc | February 4, 2009As I wrote last month, in the Year of Darwin, the loudest voice associated with science threatens to be Richard Dawkins and other New Atheist pundits who will argue their personal belief that evolution undermines the validity of religion or even respect for the religious. Certainly, this promises to be a big part of the publicity campaign behind Dawkins' forthcoming book on evolution.
In sharp contrast, the major science organizations such as AAAS and the National Academies are actively reaching out to religious leaders and groups. Another example is an event upcoming at the Center for…
nisbetmc | January 30, 2009
On Thursday, Feb. 5, I will be at Virginia Commonwealth University giving a talk as part of the university's Science, Technology, and Society lecture series (details). It will be an updated and more polished version of the lecture I gave at the New York Academy of Sciences in December.
Then on Tues., Feb. 10 I will be in New York at the American Museum of Natural History participating in a stellar panel discussion on how the media covers climate change featuring Andrew Revkin of the NY Times, Bud Ward of the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media, Bill Blakemore of ABC News, and Diane…
nisbetmc | January 23, 2009A model for government agencies and science organizations to replicate. From a Politico article on Obama's campaign pledge to use technology to enhance transparency, responsiveness, and citizen engagement:
The transition period between Election Day and Obama's swearing-in was just 76 days long, but in that time, it's fair to say that the Obama transition -- and in particular its website, Change.gov -- has made a serious down payment on these promises. Consider all the salient features of this dynamic, responsive and refreshingly open government website:
⢠Its central feature is a blog,…
nisbetmc | January 22, 2009
Call it a case of extreme optimistic bias: Many climate advocates point to polls that show when the public is asked directly, a majority say they are "concerned" about global warming and favor action. But what's missing from this poll assessment is where global warming sits relative to other political priorities. When you examine this comparison, public support for action turns up as soft, even among Dems and Independents, suggesting that it will be very difficult for Obama to rally the needed public input to pass meaningful legislation through Congress.
One way to assess the strength of…
nisbetmc | January 21, 2009
Day two of the expert workshop on science communication at the Venice Institute of Science & Arts focused more narrowly on the question of defining and evaluating forms of science communication including journalism, institutional outreach, advertising and marketing, entertainment programming, digital media, policy campaigns, and public engagement initiatives such as consensus conferences or deliberative forums. (The workshop was organized by Massimiano Bucchi, professor of sociology of science at University of Trento, Italy, where he chairs the Science & Society Programme)
Many…
nisbetmc | January 15, 2009There was a clear consensus focus to presentations and comments at the first day of the Venice workshop on science communication and public engagement: The biggest future challenge will be the increasing privatization of research and the resulting "hyping" of scientific claims.
In the U.S., when it comes to science communication, conventional wisdom laments either the politicization of science, religious opposition, or perceived public ignorance.
But for many science communication experts, including those here in Venice, the biggest threat to continued public support and trust in science…
nisbetmc | January 15, 2009What's a vision of the future of science journalism? Consider Yale Environment 360. The university and foundation-sponsored online magazine and social media site is updated daily and weekly, publishing feature reporting, analysis, and longer opinion articles by leading journalists, scientists, and policy experts. It also hosts a daily blog tracking environmental and science issues. Longer articles feature a participatory user comment section.
Consider the value of today's featured article at Environment 360, a lengthy preview of Obama's energy plan. It's written by Keith Schneider, a former…
nisbetmc | January 15, 2009
I am in Venice, Italy this week to participate in an expert workshop on research in science communication held at the historic Venice Institute of Science & the Arts (above). Already there have been some terrific presentations and I will have more to report later. But for now, in advance of my visit, I was invited to contribute an op-ed to the Science section of La Stampa, one of Italy's national newspapers. Go here to read a PDF of the op-ed in Italian. The draft English version that was then translated is below.
Science Communication: From Transmission to Conversation
Over the past…
nisbetmc | January 13, 2009
Tonight I board a plane for Venice, Italy where I will be presenting as part of an expert workshop on science communication, sponsored by the EU, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, observa Science in Society, and the University of Trent.
Some of the top European researchers in the field will be at the workshop, so I hope to be able to report on innovative ideas and themes from the two day event. And for those that read Italian, I have an op-ed appearing in tomorrow's edition of La Stampa, focusing on new directions in science communication. More on that to come.
nisbetmc | January 13, 2009Yesterday I turned in a short essay to the BA's Science & Public Affairs magazine about science communication in the Obama era. In the essay, among recommendations,I floated a proposal that is directly relevant to the future of science journalism and that has been on my mind as I work with colleagues at the Center for Social Media on an analysis of how public media can adapt to and take advantage of the digital landscape.
Here's what I wrote:
Community initiatives of a different kind should focus on building a "participatory" media infrastructure for science and environmental information…
nisbetmc | January 9, 2009Economic troubles and what to do about them are not unlike climate change or biomedical research. Both economic policy and science policy can be deeply complex and uncertain and can easily be interpreted through the lens of ideology and partisanship. As a result, communicating about these issues should not be a guessing game, relying solely on intuition or experience to guide message design and the targeting of audiences. Instead they should be based on careful audience research.
From Bloomberg News:
President-elect Barack Obama's top political aides are transplanting their campaign tactics…
nisbetmc | January 9, 2009Sigh. More of the same self-defeating sophomoric rants against religion coming to a theater soon.
It's an embarrassing time to be an atheist in America.
nisbetmc | January 7, 2009
Kudos to the Obama administration for approaching one of America's top science communicators for the position of Surgeon General. Not only could CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta be a visible and persuasive media presence on heath care reform, but he will also hopefully use the authority of the Surgeon General's office to emphasize the health impacts of climate change.
As I have written in the past, by re-framing climate change as a public health problem, there is an important new emphasis on the linkages to infectious diseases, heat stroke, and other familiar health problems, especially among the…
nisbetmc | January 7, 2009A reminder about the outstanding panel to be held tomorrow at NSF headquarters.
nisbetmc | December 24, 2008
In announcements and press efforts this past month, the Vatican is promoting Galileo as a symbol of collaboration between science and religion. The initiative is part of a larger campaign by the Vatican to repair the Pope's image on matters of science and to promote dialogue on the relationship between reason and faith.
Overall, the Vatican's efforts should be welcomed. In a media environment that chronically pits science and faith against each other, we need powerful cultural symbols that counter the conflict narrative and that can serve as conversation starters rather than generating…
nisbetmc | December 22, 2008
Turns out that GOP message guru Frank Luntz doesn't think much of the Bush administration's communication strategy across the past eight years. In an interview with NPR's On the Media (audio above, transcript), here's part of what he had to say about the Bush lexicon:
FRANK LUNTZ: I don't think all that much of George Bush's linguistic mastery will live beyond him. The problem with Bush is that he talked about privatizing Social Security before he talked about personalizing it, so that undermined that way of articulating. He talked about a bailout rather than calling it a recovery plan or a…
nisbetmc | December 22, 2008At The Yale Climate Forum, Lisa Palmer contributes a very useful feature reviewing various strategies for how scientists can write effective newspaper op-eds on climate change.
Most of the first half of the feature focuses on examples that target national elite newspapers like the NY Times or WPost, either grabbing attention by using heated language, i.e. arguing against "deniers" that "infest" public discourse, or by proposing bigger picture policy initiatives such as boosting long term funding for NASA's Earth observing system. (Using too much heat, of course, often backfires.)
These types…