nisbetmc | June 25, 2007"I think one movie can make a difference; I do believe that," says director Michael Moore. Indeed, speculation over the impact of his new documentary SICKO was the subject of a news feature in the Sunday New York Times:
Whether embracing Mr. Moore's remedy or disdaining it, elected officials and policy experts agreed last week that the film was likely to have broad political impact, perhaps along the lines of "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's jeremiad on global warming. It will, they predicted, crystallize the frustration that is a pre-existing condition for so many health care consumers.…
nisbetmc | June 25, 2007Something to think about...Kyoto was strategically framed by conservatives as an unfair economic burden on the U.S. , deflating public support across polls. Yet according to Gallup trends and other poll indicators, Americans have always supported international agreements on climate in general and mandatory caps on CO2 emissions specifically. It's a classic example of how framing can alter public preferences on a particular agreement or legislative bill that turns on a principle that the public would otherwise support.
Below the fold I detail what the available poll data suggests about how…
nisbetmc | June 20, 2007Today I received the latest issue of Dartmouth Alumni magazine to discover inside an interesting poll of graduating seniors at my alma mater. Long branded a conservative campus--with notable right wing alumni from the 1980s including Dinesh D'Souza and Laura Ingraham--perception these days doesn't seem to fit the reality of the student body.
According to the survey, when asked "Do you believe in God?," 42% of those surveyed answered "No." When then asked "Have your religious views changed while you've been at Dartmouth?," 25% answered "Yes."
In terms of partisan identity, among seniors…
nisbetmc | June 19, 2007
First John McCain was against embryonic stem cell research, now he's for it.
First Mitt Romney was for embryonic stem cell research, now he's against it.
If either of these GOP candidates win the nomination, given their track record on stem cell research and a host of other issues, it will be difficult for them to push the traditional "flip flopper" attacks on the Democratic nominee.
Over at the NY Times' "The Caucus" blog, Michael Luo details a memo released by the McCain campaign describing Romney's flip-flopping statements on stem cell research over the years. It's a great read. The…
nisbetmc | June 14, 2007
With action on Iraq and major domestic initiatives such as immigration stalled, Congressional Dems have lost the sense of approval and optimism that greeted them in January. The gap in public approval, according to a recent Pew poll, has reached 15 percentage points.
Action on climate change and stem cell research were also part of the Dems' promised package of policies to put in place this year. Unfortunately, it looks like the juggernaut issues of Iraq, immigration, the 2008 Horse Race, and a growing number of oversight investigations will derail any meaningful science policy until…
nisbetmc | June 13, 2007In our last major talk of the summer here in DC, on Tues. June 19 we will be delivering our Speaking Science 2.0 presentation at the Center for American Progress. Breakfast is served at 830am. The talk and discussion follows from 10 to 1130am. The Center has all the details here.
CAP senior fellow and former assistant Energy secretary Joseph Romm will be hosting the event. He's the author of the terrific new book Hell and High Water: Global Warming-The Solution and the Politics and also contributes the popular Climate Progress blog.
As was the case earlier this month at the New York…
nisbetmc | June 13, 2007Previously, I've noted the major hole that the IPCC digs itself by releasing its consensus reports on Fridays, only to be lost in the weekend news cycle. Back in February, the timing of the IPCC report helped contribute to what I described as a "massive communication failure" in generating wider attention among the U.S. media and public.
Now several leading climate scientists, led by James Hansen, are calling attention to a bigger problem. They argue that the IPCC's conclusions are scientifically "too reticent" (a great frame device).
According to these scientists, it's more than just a…
nisbetmc | June 12, 2007Yesterday, stem cell researcher John Gearhart, Washington Post reporter Rick Weiss, and physician William Hurlburt appeared on NPR's Diane Rehm Show to discuss the latest in the stem cell debate. I recommend listening to the archived audio as the program provides a great deal of context in understanding last week's events and the debate in general. Of interest to my post yesterday, both Gearhart and Weiss say that they think the timing of the skin stem cell studies were nothing more than coincidence.
(In other speculation, over at the Sandwalk blog, one commentator reports that the timing…
nisbetmc | June 12, 2007
As we argue in the Nisbet & Mooney Framing Science thesis, one reason that traditional science communication efforts fail to reach the wider American public is that the media tend to feed on the soft news preferences of the mass audience, making it very easy for citizens who lack a strong interest in public affairs or science coverage to completely avoid such content and instead pay only close attention to infotainment sagas.
As a result, climate change, despite receiving record amounts of media attention historically, still routinely fails to crack the top 10 news stories, as tracked by…
nisbetmc | June 11, 2007Consider the following events, their political timing, and their impact on the framing of the stem cell debate:
1) Last week, as the House was preparing to vote on legislation that would overturn Bush's limits on funding for embryonic stem cell research, studies published at the journals Nature and Cell Stem Cell reported that mouse skin stem cells could be turned into a pluripotent stem cell with all the characteristics of an embryonic stem cell. Coverage of the studies appeared on the front page of the Washington Post and other newspapers across the country.
Though the research teams…
nisbetmc | June 6, 2007As we go on the road with our Speaking Science 2.0 tour, it's a chance for many to hear a more detailed presentation of the Nisbet & Mooney thesis. It's also a chance to engage in an important conversation about new directions in science communication. (For example, based on our talk last month at the Stowers Institute, Josh Rosenau has this comprehensive summary over at Thoughts from Kansas.)
Monday night at the New York Academy of Sciences, close to 150 people turned out to hear our latest presentation, with a lively question & answer period that followed. Among those in the…
nisbetmc | June 5, 2007Chris Mooney's latest Seed column is now available free at the magazine's web site. Chris spotlights several panels at this year's AAAS meetings that focused on how to better engage the public on complex science issues. Several panelists at AAAS echoed our Framing Science recommendations, pointing to research in areas such as political science to suggest that facts alone will not move public action on global warming, and that working together with religious and business leaders is one way to breakthrough to otherwise inattentive publics.
Ethicist Stephen Gardiner of the University of…
nisbetmc | June 4, 2007A crowd close to 200 is expected for tonight's Speaking Science 2.0 presentation at the New York Academy of Sciences in Manhattan (7 World Trade Center, 6-730pm, reception to follow.) Chris and I are looking forward to meeting many NY-area readers and having a lively discussion about new directions in science communication.
I am back in DC tomorrow morning but then Thursday and Friday I will be in Philadelphia presenting as part of a conference hosted by the Wharton School of Business and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, with a focus on the public communication of nanotechnology. Details…
nisbetmc | June 4, 2007Thanks to a post by DarkSyde over at Daily Kos, the You Tube clip of our Speaking Science 2.0 presentation has been viewed more than 5,000 times. Here's a time annotated guide to the sections of our talk:
1. Mooney introduction of themes 0:00-6:25
2. Nisbet on popular science vs. framing 6:25-17:07
3. Mooney on case study of intelligent design-creationism 17:07-25:35
4. Nisbet on case study of stem cell research 25:38-36:00
5. Nisbet on case study of global warming 36:00-43:30
6. Mooney on case study of hurricane-global warming debate 43:30-51:15
7. Nisbet on new directions in science…
nisbetmc | June 4, 2007
Imagine for the moment a classic work of modern art as pictured above. When a curator takes a heavy and bulky wooden frame, places it around the complex and uncertain image, a viewers' eyes are drawn to certain dimensions of that painting over others, perhaps leading to a specific interpretation of the artist's intent or even a specific emotional reaction.
If a second curator replaces that bulky wooden frame with a much lighter metallic one, a viewer's gaze might be drawn immediately to other aspects of the painting, potentially altering the interpretation of the artist's intended meaning…
nisbetmc | May 30, 2007The talk that Chris Mooney and I gave earlier this month at the meetings of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is now available on YouTube. In the next few weeks, AIBS will be posting on its Website synchronized footage of the PowerPoint slides that we allude to in the YouTube clip.
You can watch our talk in its entirety over at the Speaking Science 2.0 site.
nisbetmc | May 29, 2007In a letter published at Science, Cornell University professors and media relations staff offer their recommendations on media training training for scientists.
The recommendations are based on a media relations course for graduate students taught as part of the Biogeochemistry and Environmental Biocomplexity program.
Below are some specifics:
Currently, most communication training for scientists begins after a prominent scientific discovery, and the training often occurs in a trial-by-fire style. However, a cultural shift is under way, reflecting the higher stakes of research, and an…
nisbetmc | May 25, 2007The NY Times' Andrew Revkin details a study at Nature that finds that in the Caribbean there have been centuries where strong hurricanes occurred frequently even though ocean temperatures were cooler than those measured today. Revkin reports that although the new study does not necessarily conflict with other recent research connecting global warming to more intense hurricanes, it does show that factors other than ocean temperatures can shape trends in the power of storms.
Revkin quotes climate scientist Judith Curry, ending the article with an important focus on the policy implications of…
nisbetmc | May 25, 2007Facebook and similar social networking sites hold vast potential for reaching non-traditional audiences for science. As the NY Times reports today, Facebook has 25 million users and growing as the company plans bold new features and opens up its user base to almost anyone with an email account. Social networking sites are important new platforms for science communication since they facilitate two of the key strategies I have pushed in the past in reaching broader American audiences about science.
First, they have the potential to facilitate incidental exposure, in other words they can…
nisbetmc | May 18, 2007
Mary K. Miller of San Francisco's The Exporatorium has launched a new blog called The Accidental Scientist. The blog is focused on introducing readers to the ways in which scientists investigate and understand the natural world.
Mary is a science writer, producer, and Web cast host at The Exploratorium. She's also director of their Osher Fellows program, which brings scientists, academics, and others to The Exploratorium to collaborate on projects and share ideas. I had the chance to visit The Exploratorium as an Osher Fellow in the spring and I will be back out there for two weeks at the…