nisbetmc | August 9, 2007
I'm back in DC after spending the previous two weeks in San Francisco as an Osher Fellow at The Exploratorium. It was my second visit this year to the world's greatest science center. Each time I go out there I tell my friends that I feel like Tom Friedman in The World is Flat, trading ideas with really smart and innovative people. (I'm not the only one to offer high praise for The Explo, check out this rave from Jennifer Oullette at Cocktail Physics.)
During my two weeks, I held several brown bag lunch discussions with staff on topics including science and the media; the effective use of…
nisbetmc | August 9, 2007
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the best selling books of the past decade have been converted into a video game for kids and young adults. That's right, available in October, is Left Behind: Eternal Forces. Max Blumenthal has a post on the game and its use as part of a planned Evangelical crusade in Iraq. CNN filed the report above. (Hat tip to Ed Brayton.)
nisbetmc | August 7, 2007On Sunday, the LA Times ran two major feature articles on the emerging influence and power of documentary film. One article contrasted the works of Michael Moore and Ken Burns. The other feature explores the meaning of objectivity across the many emerging documentary genres.
For anyone who has seen the Speaking Science 2.0 talk, you know that I emphasize in the conclusions the emerging importance of film as a public engagement tool. It's currently an active part of my research program, and expect a lot more to come on the topic here at Framing Science. For the time being, check out the…
nisbetmc | August 7, 2007Talk about facilitating incidental exposure to science. The Boston Globe explains how David Beckham is able to curl a soccer ball around an 8 man wide wall. Hat tip to Knight Science Tracker.
nisbetmc | August 6, 2007The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has launched an ambitious new public outreach campaign that echoes many of the strategies I think science organizations and institutions can use to strengthen their public ties. The campaign recognizes that while public broadcasting has a mission to inform, the institution's perceived image and value often turns on social connections. Moreover, any national campaign needs an equally strong local component.
As the online mag Current reports, the various print, broadcast and online components of the new campaign will revolve around a flexible concept, My…
nisbetmc | August 6, 2007Are you an information technology optimist or skeptic? Chances are, if you are a regular blog reader or poster, you fall in the former category. Yet ever feel like all that time you spend online might be displacing time spent in more meaningful face-to-face interactions? Are the social relationships forged via Web 2.0 and various mobile phone innovations really as quality as real world conversations? At American University, it's a question I ask my sophomore-level class on Communication & Society to research and debate every semester. (This past semester's debate is available here.)
On…
nisbetmc | August 5, 2007
The NY Times has the dish on perhaps the final tragedy in the fall of Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk. Apparently Hwang's lab was the first to derive stem cells from parthenogenesis, or virgin birth, meaning they were derived from an unfertilized egg. "It could have been a seminal finding if they hadn't had their blinders on," one expert told the NY Times. Knight Science Tracker has the full run down on how other news agencies covered this latest twist in the cloning drama.
nisbetmc | August 4, 2007
Back in November, when Missouri passed a constitutional amendment protecting the ability of scientists to conduct embryonic stem cell research in the state, it was heralded as one more political victory for science, and a sign that even in the Midwest, proponents had turned the corner on conservative opposition.
Yet the LA Times reports that the Amendment campaign has only served to catalyze opposition within the state legislature and among activists, threatening the state's ability to move forward with research:
The amendment passed by fewer than 51,000 votes, or about two percentage…
nisbetmc | August 3, 2007The AP reports that organizers of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Austria next month are offering the faithful a foretaste: daily cell phone text messages with quotes from the pontiff. The Archdiocese of Vienna said the service, which began Sunday and will continue through the pope's Sept. 7-9 visit, will provide free excerpts of his sermons, blessings and writings.
Currently on holiday, the Pope also framed an appeal on the environment in religious terms:
We cannot simply do what we want with this Earth of ours, with what has been entrusted to us...We must respect the interior laws of creation…
nisbetmc | August 3, 2007
In the 2004 election, the great majority of voters didn't deliberate the specific policy positions of the candidates and then make an informed choice. Instead, in order to make up their minds, the miserly public relied heavily on "low information signals" such as likability and perceived character.
In their analysis of the election, James Carville and Paul Begala conclude that the Bush team correctly realized that a few themes could frame the election in their favor. The central themes went something like this:
If he doesn't live your life, share your values, or is someone you would want to…
nisbetmc | August 3, 2007
As I've documented several times here at Framing Science, despite record amounts of news attention to climate change, the issue has often been eclipsed by coverage of "Paris Nicole Smith" and other celebrity scandals. So who is to blame for the skewed priorities of the press?
In a survey out this week, Pew finds that 87% of the public believes that the media has gone overboard on celebrity coverage and a majority of respondents think that it's news organizations who are to blame rather than public appetite.
nisbetmc | August 2, 2007The philosopher Paul Kurtz has published a new position booklet that addresses much of what I have been arguing is missing--and so deeply troubling--about the New Atheist movement. Below is a press release from the Council for Secular Humanism.
Secular Humanism's Elder Statesman Responds to "The New Atheism"
Council for Secular Humanism founder and chairman Paul Kurtz has responded to the recent cultural phenomenon known as "The New Atheism" with a position booklet titled "What Is Secular Humanism?"
"The New Atheism" is a term created by a handful of pundits and journalists to describe…
nisbetmc | July 31, 2007Last week I posted on the "Misunderstood Meanings of Science Literacy," noting that scientists, policymakers, and journalists tend to narrowly focus on the recall of facts about science as the most important dimension of knowledge. Usually this dimension of knowledge is tested in quiz like survey questions.
In the paper's monthly Education section, the NY Times provides just such an example, asking several scientists to provide questions for readers.
Yet why is the most important thing to know about climate change defined exclusively in terms of science? Why not ask experts who study the…
nisbetmc | July 31, 2007
In journalism, professional norms favor telling gripping stories about individuals and places. Applied to the debate over global warming, many journalists believe that if they can recast the complex issue in terms of familiar characters and local places, they can activate greater public concern and understanding.
Yet it remains important that these individual stories are embedded within more thematic presentations that focus on broader climate trends and impacts. It's also important that individual stories about citizens who are taking action also provide context for how even greater…
nisbetmc | July 30, 2007Has the effort by liberals to re-brand themselves as progressives been successful? What about Republicans who no longer describe themselves as a conservative but rather as a "Reagan Republican"? Rasmussen released a survey last week that reveals some interesting findings:
Just 20% said they consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically liberal while 39% would view that description negatively. However, 35% would consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically progressive. Just 18% react negatively to that term. Those figures reflect a huge swing, from a…
nisbetmc | July 30, 2007
Gore's Live Earth concert series was supposed to catalyze American public attention around the problem of global warming, but did it? Polling data is not yet available regarding the concert's impact on American audiences, but we do have data relative to the concert's influence on the U.S. news agenda.
According to Pew's Media Index, during the week of the event, the Live Earth concert failed to generate much actual mainstream news attention, but it did make the agenda at the "talk media," which Pew defines as including seven prime time cable shows and five radio talk hosts. As Pew reports…
nisbetmc | July 27, 2007
Gallup has released an analysis of how support for various presidential candidates breaks down by church attendance. Somewhat surprisingly, in a general election match up, Hillary and Rudy are neck and neck among non-church going whites.
Most of this aggregate split is attributable to the ambivalence of non-church going independents. Here's what Gallup reports:
Overall, 54% of whites say they would vote for Giuliani if the election was being held today, while 41% would vote for Clinton. This is testimony in and of itself to the dependence Democrats have on ethnic, non-white voters to win…
nisbetmc | July 27, 2007Oxford University Press has published a new edited volume featuring research on public opinion and media coverage of the plant biotech debate in the US, Europe, Africa, India,and Brazil. The volume is edited by Dominique Brossard and James Shanahan, professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cornell University respectively, along with Clint Nesbitt, a scientist at USDA.
Below is a table of contents. I contributed the chapter on "Where Do Science Debates Come From?," co-authored with Mike Huge, a graduate student I worked with at Ohio State.
Table of Contents
-Perspectives on…
nisbetmc | July 25, 2007
As I've argued at this blog many times and in our article at Science, defining evolution in terms of medical progress is probably the best way to translate its' importance to a wider American public. Back in February, PLOS Biology published a revealing study where the authors strongly agree. In fact, they find that the framing used at scientific journals is likely to have strong implications for public perceptions. Indeed, a simple change in word choice could make an important difference.
Below the abstract, go here for full text:
The increase in resistance of human pathogens to…
nisbetmc | July 23, 2007Big Tobacco.
Big Oil.
Big Pharma.
Big Biotech.
Big Nanotech?
Each of these phrases are examples of frame devices, words that act like triggers in activating underlying cultural meanings.
In fact, these frame devices instantly communicate the public accountability frame: Who benefits? Who controls the science? Is this science in the public or in the private interest?
As nanotechnology climbs up the media agenda over the next decade, watch out for the "Big Nanotech" frame device. It will be a sign that interpretations of the issue are moving from a promotional emphasis on social progress and…