nisbetmc | January 3, 2008Mike Huckabee plays guitar and jokes about his weight on The Tonight Show.
Last night on Jay Leno, Mike Huckabee put in the best late night performance in presidential history, potentially catapulting himself to a win in Iowa tonight and gaining enough momentum to march on to victory in South Carolina. As I explained when Fred Thompson launched his campaign on late night television, these types of appearances are a powerful new strategic tool in campaigns.
On late night shows, candidates are usually able to offer their best personal narrative, and hopefully in the process, prime memories of…
nisbetmc | January 2, 2008Back in 2005 when I spent a month as a visiting scholar at Dresden Technical University in Germany, I was stunned to be told by several graduate students that in the rural areas of Saxony a quarter of voters supported so-called neo-nazi political parties and organizations. Now one of my favorite academic outlets, the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, features in its latest issue two essays debating the roots of public support for radical right parties in Europe. For those logging on from an academic or institutional gateway with a subscription, the two essays are well worth…
nisbetmc | January 2, 2008
Advisers worry that Benedict is not as media savvy as John Paul.
Religion like science does not speak for itself, it needs to be carefully communicated with the media and specific audiences in mind. According to Reuters, Italian film and opera director Franco Zeffirelli is offering his services to Pope Benedict as an image consultant, saying the German pontiff comes across as cold and needs to review his wardrobe. "Coming after a media-savvy pope like John Paul II is a difficult task ... Benedict XVI still communicates coldly, in a way that is not suited with what is happening around him,"…
nisbetmc | January 2, 2008Starting in the 1970s, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists began to apply their methods and theories to understanding the processes and assumptions that shape the production of scientific knowledge and technology.
These scholars argued that science does not stand apart from society as a collection of objective facts and theories, but is influenced by institutions, social norms, ideology, and even the laboratory technology that is used to observe nature. This new field of science studies offered important insight into the practice and craft of doing science while providing valuable…
nisbetmc | January 1, 2008If anyone knows their way around airports, it's Frank Luntz. The language maestro estimates he logs 300,000 miles a year and stays in 100 hotels as he jets around the world consulting with corporate clients and political conservatives. At Business Week, he offers readers his tips on surviving airports.
nisbetmc | December 31, 2007
Excerpt from coal and utility advertisement run in Kansas
Back in November, by framing their advertising appeals in terms of economic competitiveness and patriotism, a coal company and utility effectively promoted it attacks on the governor of Kansas. Their claim, conveyed powerfully in ads as shown above, argued that the governor's rejection of two power plant applications on the basis of greenhouse emissions would force the state to rely on natural gas from an Axis of near-Evil that included Venezuela, Iran, and Russia.
The Wichita Eagle newspaper responded with both a print editorial and…
nisbetmc | December 31, 2007
At Time magazine, a focus on who will break out of the pack?!
As the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary approaches, it's all horse race all the time in the news media with an almost exclusive focus on "insider" coverage of campaign strategy and a fascination with who's ahead and who's behind in the polls. Lost in the media spectacle is any careful coverage of issues and policy proposals, or serious discussion of candidate background. In fact, it seems there's never been a time in 2007 where issues have taken primacy over the sports game of political coverage.
Consider that an analysis by…
nisbetmc | December 21, 2007
A X-Mas Goracle
In an editorial in the latest issue of the journal Climatic Change, Simon Donner argues that scientists need to join with religious leaders in communicating the urgency of climate change. Donner is an assistant professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on climate change, coral reefs, and nutrient cycling.
Following the lead of older avant-garde communicators such as Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson and EO Wilson, Donner is one of many among a new generation of scientists who recognize that a paradigm shift is needed for engaging the…
nisbetmc | December 20, 2007In the Sunday NY Times Book Review, the conservative satirist PJ O'Rourke reviews Taylor Clark's Starbucked, an investigative and sociological look at the rise of America's most prominent coffee chain.
For Clark (a fellow Dartmouth grad) and contributor to an Oregon alternative weekly, a review at the NY Times is the much hoped for catalyst to gain attention and acclaim for his first book. Unfortunately, O'Rourke has other ideas. In the hands of the skilled satirist, the review itself emerges as much better than the book and O'Rourke lets you know it.
Back in June, I wrote about the…
nisbetmc | December 19, 2007
Pew has released its annual analysis of the top 20 most followed news stories of the year by the public. Pew pairs the survey data with a summary of their weekly news agenda tracking. For regular readers of this blog, you should not be surprised that climate change fails to crack the top 20 most followed issues or the top 20 most covered topics of 2007. (See previous posts here, and here.)
Several issues appear in the top 20 agenda items that are incidental to climate change including gas prices, periodic heat or cold waves, wild fires, and even the economy. In terms of effective public…
nisbetmc | December 9, 2007Dear readers,
I have spent the weekend battling a major case of the flu and unfortunately tomorrow's Framing Science talk at Princeton University has been postponed. I am hoping it can be rescheduled for the spring and will let everyone know a date when available.
nisbetmc | December 9, 2007
Artist rendition of nanobot assisting in reproduction.
As I highlighted last week, in the latest issue of Nature Nanotechnology my colleague Dietram Scheufele is the lead author on a survey analysis that finds that experts are more concerned about the health and environmental risks of nanotech than the public at large.
In the editorial to the issue, Nature Nanotech editor Peter Rodgers emphasizes the importance of turning to communication researchers for help in engaging the public on the many technical, social, and political dimensions of nanotech.
He specifically cites our Policy Forum…
nisbetmc | December 5, 2007
For readers on campus or in the area, on Monday I will be giving a lecture hosted by the Program in Science, Technology, & Environmental Policy (STEP) at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The talk is scheduled for 1145am to 1pm and will be in 300 Wallace Hall. Below is a description:
Framing Science: A New Paradigm in Public Engagement?
Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D.
School of Communication
American University
Over the past several years, controversies over evolution, embryonic stem cell research, global climate change, and many other topics…
nisbetmc | December 3, 2007On January 4, the National Academies will release its revised and updated report on Science, Evolution, & Creationism. After the news conference that day, the booklet and brochure will be available for purchase or for free electronic download here. A description is below:
Science, Evolution, and Creationism
This completely updated edition of the landmark booklet Science and Creationism is written for anyone who wants to learn more about the science of evolution. It provides a succinct overview of the many recent advances from the fossil record, molecular biology, and a new field known as…
nisbetmc | November 27, 2007This fall in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships.
For college students who grew up online, it's easy to take for granted the virtual society we live in, seldom pausing to consider how it might be different from more traditional forms of community life. Therefore, one of the goals of the course was to encourage students to think systematically and rigorously about the many changes…
nisbetmc | November 27, 2007
This fall in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships.
For college students who grew up online, it's easy to take for granted the virtual society we live in, seldom pausing to consider how it might be different from more traditional forms of community life. Therefore, one of the goals of the course was to encourage students to think systematically and rigorously about the many changes…
nisbetmc | November 26, 2007
You can debate the wisdom of spending more than $100 million a year on your athletics program or whether you want someone like Jim Tressel to be the national face of your university. Yet this time of year, love it or hate it, college football reigns supreme in the minds of most students and faculty.
Gallup has even released a nationally representative telephone survey evaluating which conference Americans rate the toughest. Across the sample, the SEC rates tops with 30% of all respondents saying that the SEC has been the strongest over the last 10 years. But this total aggregate number is…
nisbetmc | November 25, 2007
My colleague Dietram Scheufele is lead author on a study in the latest issue of Nature Nanotechnology. In their survey work, Scheufele et al. find that experts are more concerned about the health and environmental risks of nanotech than the public at large. This gulf in perceptions is despite a widespread lack of knowledge about the issue among citizens. See the press release.
The findings are consistent with a study I published earlier this year with another University of Wisconsin colleague Dominique Brossard. In our survey analysis examining American perceptions of plant biotechnology, we…
nisbetmc | November 21, 2007Conservatives are promoting Bush as the biomedical Atticus Finch. Shown here posing with a "snowflake" baby, adopted and born from left over in vitro clinic embryos.
Some collected thoughts on what the stem cell discovery means for the framing of the debate, trends in news coverage and public opinion:
---->As I wrote yesterday, perhaps the biggest impact on the framing of the stem cell debate is to inject a booster shot of resonance to conservative claims that pursuing embryonic stem cell research is not necessary and that we can gain everything we need from morally unproblematic adult…
nisbetmc | November 20, 2007James Thomson w/ Ian Wilmut (seated)
What happens politically when the two scientists most widely associated with therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell research appear to abandon cloning and embryo extraction for a procedure that involves non-controversial sources of pluripotent cells? It signals perhaps the end of a grand Congressional coalition that has put aside partisan differences to work in support of expanded funding for embryonic stem cell research. It also likely marks the end to the hyper-competitive race among states to fund their own research.
Today, the journals Science…