nisbetmc | April 3, 2007In his response to the Supreme Court ruling, President Bush framed any policy action in familiar terms, emphasizing the "unfair economic burden" placed on the U.S. by any "cap and trade" emissions cuts.
The decision (of) the Supreme Court we take very seriously. It's the new law of the land," Bush told reporters. He insisted that "I've taken this issue very seriously. I have said that it is a serious problem. I recognize that man is contributing greenhouse gases."
But Bush argued that "anything that happens cannot hurt economic growth. I care about the working people of the country but also…
nisbetmc | April 3, 2007 Back in February, I described how the first release of the IPCC was a massive communication failure, never really landing on the wider media or public agenda. In a column at Skeptical Inquirer Online, I described alternative strategies for reaching Americans.
As the next IPCC release arrives on Friday, the New York Times has marshaled its journalistic resources in its best attempt to make sure that global warming places third behind the war and the 2008 horse race in terms of media and public attention. For the second time in three days, the Times leads with news about the issue. On…
nisbetmc | April 3, 2007Despite the ever growing scientific consensus about the nature and urgency of global warming, Americans remain more divided politically on the matter than at anytime in history. The reason is that personal views on global warming have come to define what being a Democrat or Republican means. As GOP leaders continue to attack the science of global warming, and Democratic leaders like Al Gore continue to emphasize the urgency of the climate crisis, stances on global warming among the public have hardened into "political identity markers."
Thus, what it "means" to be Republican is to identify…
nisbetmc | April 2, 2007On April 24, investigative reporter Brooks Jackson and UPenn professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson are set to release a new book that is sure to be of interest to Framing Science readers...from the news release:
Friday, March 30, 2007
UnSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation, a new book described as "the secret decoder ring for the 21st-century world of disinformation," will officially be released by Random House on April 24. Co-authored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center's Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the paperback lays bare the art of spinning - rampant in the world of…
nisbetmc | April 2, 2007The Free University Berlin has an associate professor opening in Science Communication, as part of their Department of Political and Social Sciences and their Institute of Media and Communication Studies. I have posted the full description below the fold. Contact Markus Lehmkuhl at kuhle@zedat.fu-berlin.de for more information.
Freie Universität Berlin
Department of Political and Social Sciences
Institute of Media and Communication Studies
invites applications for a tenured
Associate Professorship in Media and Communication Studies, with special emphasis on Science Communication / Science…
nisbetmc | April 2, 2007At the NY Times, Michael Crichton reviews Jerome Groopman's new book, a compilation of his medical essays from the New Yorker. Crichton's review is worth reading, and two themes familiar to Framing Science readers stand out from his discussion of Groopman's view on modern medicine:
a) Just like the public, as part of human nature, Doctors are cognitive misers, constantly looking for short cuts and heuristics to cut down on the complexity of diagnosis and medical decision-making. Relying on heuristics is not always bad, writes Crichton and argues Groopman.
Groopman also discusses physician…
nisbetmc | April 2, 2007
Florida and Ohio State face off tonight in the Men's NCAA basketball championship, a re-match of January's national title game in football. Both schools feature the best athletics programs that money can buy, as they each spend an astounding $100 million dollars annually on their sports programs. Yet, as I wrote back in January, though these schools might be "turning pro" in athletics, they are quickly being left behind by the elite universities in terms of investment in science and research. Ohio State will invest more than $1 billion over the next ten years in athletics. In comparison,…
nisbetmc | April 1, 2007My focus on the striking partisan differences in perceptions about the urgency and science of global warming has generated serious buzz at the NY Daily News, the Huffington Post, and elsewhere across the Web. For many insiders I talk to here in DC, they are stunned by the poll numbers. Indeed, there's a false impression that the record amounts of media attention, the latest IPCC report, and Gore's movie have all put to rest any serious public resistance to the idea that human activities might be contributing to the Earth's warming.
Poll numbers aren't the only indicator that a "two Americas…
nisbetmc | March 30, 2007
On April 10, the Poynter Institute is set to release it's latest "eye tracking" study of how readers navigate the printed and online news page. The preview of the key findings is fairly suprising. Watch the video about the study at the site, and listen to this NPR Marketplace story on the forthcoming study.
nisbetmc | March 30, 2007Before leaving the Massachusetts' Governor's office, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney added regulatory language to a legislative bill that was originally intended to only prohibit the creation of embryos for research purposes within the state. Romney's additional language appeared to also prevent Massachusetts scientists from accepting out-of-state stem cell lines created from research embryos.
Today, however, the Boston Globe headlines its edition with the news that newly elected Governor Deval Patrick will announce at a life sciences conference that he wants the Department of…
nisbetmc | March 26, 2007
As I've noted, in places like Canada and Europe, nuclear energy has been successfully reframed as an important "middle way" compromise solution in the debate over what to do about global warming. Now a report out today from the Oxford Research Group casts doubt on the potential of nuclear. From Reuters:
The surge in political popularity of nuclear power as a quick-fix, zero-carbon solution to global warming is misguided and potentially highly dangerous, a group of academics and scientists said on Monday. In its report "Secure energy, civil nuclear power, security and global warming", the…
nisbetmc | March 23, 2007
In conjunction with Earth Day, a number of major survey results have been released on global warming, energy, and the environment. The latest is a survey from Gallup that chronicles American views on energy, and the trade-offs between the environment and the economy. Of note, is the now striking gap of more than twenty points between giving preference as a priority to the environment over energy supplies. Also, below, is charted American views on energy as a problem. Note the startling spike in urgency felt by the public in 2001.
As I detailed in a Science and Media column last year,…
nisbetmc | March 23, 2007 As I have detailed at Framing Science many times, over the past five years, as Democrats and Independents have shifted their views in support of embryonic stem cell research and policy action on climate change, little or no movement in opinion has occurred among self-identifying Republicans. In part, this is because partisanship acts as a very strong perceptual screen on news messages. However, there is also something else very interesting going on. Republicans appear so resistant to changing their views on controversial areas of science because, as measured in surveys, this group is…
nisbetmc | March 23, 2007An initiative that I have been pitching in talks across the country (for example, go here, here, and here), has been proposed for official funding in Congress. Stay tuned for more on this much needed bill.
Washington, DC - Congresswoman Doris O. Matsui (CA-05) introduced the Scientific Communications Act of 2007 (H.R. 1453) to provide communications skills training for graduate students in the sciences. This legislation, co-sponsored by Congressman Bart Gordon (TN-06), Chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology, provides resources at the National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve…
nisbetmc | March 22, 2007
The NY Daily News spotlights yesterday's post on the "Two Americas of Global Warming Perceptions" as among the Web's best.
nisbetmc | March 21, 2007
Gallup's annual Earth Day survey of public attitudes on the environment is out today, and the results are consistent with the patterns revealed across other surveys this year. In short, while 2006 featured a historic high in media attention to global warming and Al Gore scored publicity success with Inconvenient Truth, there still exists a "Two Americas" of public perceptions when it comes to the urgency of global warming.
As I have detailed here many times (1,2,3), the "Pandora's Box" frame of looming climate crisis continues to activate Democrats on the issue, but the powerful perceptual…
nisbetmc | March 21, 2007 All eyes today are on Capitol Hill as former VP Al Gore testifies before Congress on global warming. Bill Broad's NY Times' article last week has launched a new narrative in coverage, as various journalists review whether "Gore got the science right" in Inconvenient Truth. Interviewed by host Renee Montagne, NPR's Richard Harris weighs in today with his view. Of note, it appears that Harris was first turned on to the possibility of unease among scientists when he attended last year's American Geophysical Union meetings, where Gore spoke:
I saw Al Gore give a talk at the American…
nisbetmc | March 19, 2007
As I've previously written, expect 2008 to be defined as the YouTube election, as campaigns generate online and conversational buzz by placing innovative ads on the video sharing site, amplifying attention to the ads by way of free media publicity at the Drudge Report, online newspapers, and blogs (sites that can channel millions of readers directly to the ad.)
The latest in this trend is the high-concept anti-Clinton/pro-Obama "1984" spot. Released this weekend, the ad is linked to by the Drudge Report and major newspapers, and has been viewed at YouTube more than 500,000 times. The ad…
nisbetmc | March 16, 2007
By way of the Internet, Americans today have more public affairs and science-related information available to them than at any time in history. Yet the availability of information does not mean people will use it. Given the many competing alternatives across entertainment, celebrity culture, and other diversionary content, only those Internet users with a very strong preference for public affairs will use the medium for "hard" news on a regular base.
This general pattern of Internet consumption is once again reflected in the just released "Pew State of the News" survey. In the section…
nisbetmc | March 14, 2007My quick summary reaction to Bill Broad's provocative NY Times article surveying a few scientists and social scientists' opinions on Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth:
1) Just like in politics generally, science-related blogs can strongly shape the news agenda and framing of an issue, and Broad's article is a leading example. Roger Pielke and Kevin Vranes at UColorado's Prometheus site have been doing a great job in adding their expertise and views to the climate change discussion over the past few years. In the process, they have emerged as a valuable source for journalists trying to make…