nisbetmc | June 17, 2009Readers in the DC area will definitely want to check out the upcoming event on June 23 at the National Academies. Details are posted below. I hope to be able to attend and to report back on some collected remarks.
It will be interesting to compare the thoughts of the assembled practitioners with the conclusions from the article we published last week at Nature Biotechnology, which synthesized relevant research in the fields of science communication, ethics, and policy and highlighted eight key recommendations.
The National Academies Presents: An Educational Event on Science Communication
The…
nisbetmc | June 16, 2009Over at the NY Times' Dot Earth, Andrew Revkin has started a conversation with readers on the merits of framing as applied to climate change communication. Revkin takes as a point of departure the Seed magazine roundtable on the issue published a few weeks back. Revkin adds to the mix another voice on the matter, scientist-turned-filmmaker Randy Olson. In his remarks excerpted by Revkin, Olson correctly points out that it's not just the frame but also the source--or the spokesperson--that matters.
The full range of comments from readers is well worth reading. I weighed in with my own response…
nisbetmc | June 16, 2009
Over the past decade, issues such as fast food and obesity, organics and pesticides, genetic engineering, and factory farming have each captured their share of attention from engaged citizens and advocacy groups. Focusing events, such as the 2008 factory farming ballot initiative in California or the 2000 Starlink GM corn episode have generated spikes in news coverage. Popular books such as Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, and Pollan's NY Times article "Farmer in Chief" have reinforced concerns among an attentive public and generated reactions from…
nisbetmc | June 15, 2009
I am back from an excellent science journalism conference in Denmark and will have more to say on the meeting which highlighted several issues that speak directly to challenges faced here in the US. But for now, I wanted to return to our Commentary article "Science Communication Re-Considered" published last week at Nature Biotechnology.
Of particular interest to readers, we discuss the rise of science blogging as just one small part of the complex puzzle which is public engagement. There is a lot to like about blogs but there is also a lot to be cautious about. Importantly, despite great…
nisbetmc | June 15, 2009The Associated Press announced Friday that it had entered into a partnership with four non-profit investigative journalism organizations to distribute their work to more than 1,500 American newspapers who are AP members.
As I commented Friday over at Science Journalism Tracker, the model developed in investigative journalism offers a blueprint for similar non-profit initiatives in science and environmental journalism. The announcement by the AP demonstrates the potential for non-profit ventures to reach a large audience while filling in a major gap in existing coverage at regional and local…
nisbetmc | June 9, 2009
In this month's issue of Nature Biotechnology, I join with other authors to suggest several bold new initiatives in science communication and journalism. The Commentary article includes an overview of key issues and trends in the field and closes with a series of specific recommendations.
The article is based on a workshop held this past year in Washington, DC, organized by Timothy Caulfield and Tania Bubela of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta. The authors reflect the participants in that workshop and include representatives from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany and…
nisbetmc | June 7, 2009[Contributed by guest blogger Katherine Broendel]
Before I begin writing about what my research has found regarding the framing of sexual violence in the media, I'd like to take a moment to define some of the parameters of my research. I focused my attention on sexual violence committed against women. I recognize that approximately 10% of sexual violence victims and survivors are male, and I do not discount their experiences. However, considering the vast majority of the violence is aimed at women and girls, I chose to focus my study on women. In addition, I'd like to note that I did not…
nisbetmc | June 5, 2009
I head to Stockholm and Copenhagen today where on Wednesday I will be participating in a unique conference organized by the Danish Science Journalists Association. The focus is on many of the central themes discussed at this blog including framing, public engagement, the future of science journalism, and the promise and challenges of new media technologies. For more, check out below one of the "Dane in the Street" interviews that organizers have run in advance of the conference.
I won't have much time to blog but I do hope to be able to post my own pictures of these wonderful cities and to…
nisbetmc | June 4, 2009Hello, I'm Katherine Broendel, and I will be guest blogging this month about sexual violence. As Matt mentioned in a previous post, I am a Master's degree candidate in Public Communication at American University, and I wrote my capstone (thesis) on the framing of sexual violence in the media. The goal of my research was to reevaluate the current frames being used by the news media in order to provide women's groups and issue advocates recommendations on how to get accurate, sensitive coverage of sex crimes. My experience in graduate school has allowed me to focus on women's issues in…
nisbetmc | June 4, 2009Next week there will be big news on the science communication front. In anticipation, I was just going back over some things that I have written on the topic over the past decade. I ran across an essay I wrote for Skeptical Inquirer from 2003, which I posted below the fold. The essay puts into context an interesting debate that took place in the pages of The Guardian between eminent UK scientist Susan Greenfield and science communication professor Jon Turney.
Greenfield's side of the debate reflects a continued dominant line of thinking referred to as the "deficit model," the assumption that…
nisbetmc | June 2, 2009
At the AFI Silver Theater on July 29 watch Spencer Tracy argue in defense of evolution.
For readers in the DC area, on July 29 at 7pm, the NIH Office of Science Education and the American Film Institute are teaming up to sponsor a screening of Inherit the Wind as part of their summer film series "Science in the Cinema."
Following the film, I have been invited to make a few remarks on the evolution debate as it plays out in contemporary culture and the enduring themes from the classic movie. The event and film series is designed to facilitate active audience participation and debate, so I…
nisbetmc | June 2, 2009Back during the 2008 election, John McCain came under much ridicule for admitting that he doesn't use the Internet or a Blackberry. Turns out that Bill Clinton is in the same exclusive category as McCain. From Sunday's profile at the New York Times magazine:
The man who ushered in the Internet age still does not use a computer, much less a BlackBerry, but keeps up with blogs and sites like The Huffington Post through clips printed out by aides.
nisbetmc | June 2, 2009In a fascinating cover article at the Sunday NY Times magazine, Bill Clinton reflects on health care and climate change as the two major failures of his presidency. Here are the key passages where Clinton describes why he wasn't able to accomplish more on climate change:
On climate change, he argued that he did what he could as president; he pushed for the Kyoto treaty curbing greenhouse gases but never sent it to the Senate because it would not be ratified. "Nobody was really focusing on climate change," he said. "So a lot of times you have to wait for the time to get right."...
...A few…
nisbetmc | June 2, 2009The Dave Matthews Band's latest album debuts today on iTunes and in stores. Early reviews at the WPost and Rolling Stone are lauding the release as DMB's best since the days of Under the Table and Dreaming and Before These Crowded Streets.
Of note, guitarist Tim Reynolds joins the band on this album, which is welcome news to fans of his past acoustic work with lead singer Dave Matthews. To be honest, I haven't enjoyed much of DMB since at least Before These Crowded Streets and so I will be curiously listening to the new album today in the office. I also have tickets to see the band in…
nisbetmc | June 1, 2009Several science bloggers this month are spotlighting sexual violence as a social problem and the Scienceblogs portal has jumped on board. The focus is mostly on international cases but it's important to also think about how sexual violence is framed and addressed here in the U.S.
This past semester, Katherine Broendel, one of my graduate students here at AU, reviewed studies of how sexual violence is framed in news coverage and public discourse, synthesizing this research to come up with a generalizable typology of commonly appearing frames and interpretations. These frames are important…
nisbetmc | June 1, 2009
The future of science journalism and communication will involve three key strategies:
1. "Going broad" and reaching a diversity of audiences across non-traditional media platforms such as entertainment film and television, new genres of documentary film, new forms of multi-media storytelling, new genres involving satire and comedy, and through collaborations with the creative arts.
2. "Going deep" and creating new non-profit forms of digital science journalism, especially at the local or regional level, that offer rich reservoirs of information via content contributed by professional…
nisbetmc | June 1, 2009In an article in the Sunday edition, WPost reporters Steve Mufson and Juliet Eilperin detail how Obama during his presidential campaign took the lead in urging his staffers to re-frame their message on energy and climate change. As the headline notes, Obama's campaign and White House has gained traction by "re-framing" the issue in terms of jobs and national security, the type of communication strategy and bully pulpit leadership that I urged was necessary in an April article at the journal Environment.
Unfortunately, as I wrote last week and detailed at Environment, though the White House is…
nisbetmc | June 1, 2009Over at his blog for the Office of Research Communications at Ohio State University, Earle Holland provides more back stage insight on the media strategy surrounding the fossil Darwinius:
Prior to the press conference, only a handful of select reporters got an advance look at the scientific paper, and they were sworn to secrecy until the unveiling. Normally, scientific journals will share advance copies of such papers with science writers who will have enough time to accurately report the story, not just parrot back statements offered at a press briefing. This insures input from experts in…
nisbetmc | May 31, 2009
I spent the past three days with my colleague Ed Maibach and several graduate students conducting one-on-one interviews about climate change with participants recruited and screened from among the diversity of visitors to the National Mall in Washington, DC.
In conducting these qualitative interviews--which varied in time between 30 minutes to more than an hour--I was amazed at the forms of localized knowledge and depth of reasoning that participants from different educational backgrounds and with varying political views brought to the topic of climate change.
The experience reflected…
nisbetmc | May 31, 2009My friend Dietram Scheufele sat down a few weeks back for a Q&A interview with one of the magazines produced by the the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Scheufele, a professor of Life Sciences Communication at UW, was asked about new directions in science communication.
In the interview, he emphasizes several themes from social science research in the area that we first popularized in a cover article at The Scientist magazine back in 2007 and that we expand on in a lengthy article that is likely to be out later this year. Below are a few key comments from the interviews. I will be…