Framing Science
clock | June 13, 2007"Fine in practice, but how does it work in theory?"
This headline (in a French paper, of course), prompted Sally Green to pen a fine, fine post - an Obligatory Reading of the Day - about class, education, the psychology of class, the difference between academia and the real world, the difference between theory and practice, and the difference between the people who fight for the equality of opportunity and the people who oppose it (and their rhetoric).
cmooney | June 12, 2007I've done something a bit off the beaten path recently--teamed up with a scientist to write an editorial for a medical journal. My piece, with Beth Jordan, M.D., who is the scientific director of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, just appeared in Contraception. Here is the gist:
In the medical and especially the highly politicized reproductive health arena, one consequence of the frequent misappropriation of the mantle of science can be seen in a cacophony of news headlines, presenting bewildering and often conflicting information: "Rethinking Hormones, Again", "What?…
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…
cmooney | June 6, 2007The Mooney-Nisbet combo just returned from speaking in New York....and there have already been reactions to the latest talk from well-known science writer John Horgan (who was in the audience) as well as a write-up from Curtis Brainard of Columbia Journalism Review. In his article Brainard quotes celebrated NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt, of RealClimate.org, who also was kind enough to attend the talk and hang out afterwards.
I'd like to convince John Horgan, if I can, that framing is not tantamount to spin. I'm going to try to do that. Meanwhile, I appreciate Gavin's view as expressed in…
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…
cmooney | June 2, 2007 The Mooney-Nisbet combo act is heading to New York: We are doing a talk at the New York Academy of Sciences, sponsored by the Science Alliance, on Monday night. Click the icon for details. This should be our biggest event yet (we just got a nice mention from Darksyde over at Daily Kos), so if you're in the area, we hope you'll attend.
Blogging from the road is always difficult, of course, and I won't be back until Tuesday night late. We may be getting some posts from Sheril between now and then, though. She did such a great job tending the blog while I was away that I have asked her to stay…
cmooney | June 1, 2007PZ Myers has this to say about the YouTube video of our "Speaking Science 2.0" talk:
I tried to watch that video. I even made it to the 20 minute mark before I gave up. Please, oh please, I need some substance in order to keep me going through an hour-long lecture.
I'm going to try not to get annoyed or snippy about this. Instead, I'll "frame" my response this way: It's funny that others don't share this perspective, isn't it?
We have given the talk so far to two serious groups populated by many, many scientists: At the Stowers Institute in Kansas City, and at the annual meeting of the…
clock | May 31, 2007In the May 18th issue of Science there is a revew paper by Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg. An expanded version of it also appeared recently in Edge and many science bloggers are discussing it these days.
Enrique has the best one-sentence summary of the article:
The main source of resistance to scientific ideas concerns what children know prior to their exposure to science.
The article divides that "what children know prior to their exposure to science" into two categories: the intuitive grasp of the world (i.e., conclusions they come up with on their own) and the learned…
cmooney | May 31, 2007My new Seed column, with the same title as this post, is now online. It's about how to convey the "perfect moral storm" that is the global warming problem to an American public that remains deeply confused and even ambivalent about the issue....as epitomized by NASA administrator Michael Griffith's recent bonehead statement to the effect that global warming isn't a problem. Is he trying to massively over-correct for James Hansen or something?
Prometheus has more.
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.
cmooney | May 30, 2007It's official: The "Speaking Science 2.0" talk is now viewable in its entirety on YouTube:
The presentation above is the one that we gave at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Biological Sciences a few weeks back. Unfortunately, you can't see the PowerPoint slides; you can only see us talking. So not everything will make absolutely perfect sense, especially in my parts of the talk, because I don't always describe in words what I'm showing on the screen.
Still, this is a far fuller explication of our ideas than exists anywhere else; and I flatter myself in thinking that it's even…
cmooney | May 27, 2007posted by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum
Anticlimactic perhaps, but then you knew my last post on Framing wouldn't provide closure on the topic. Hubris would be an understatement if I claimed to have a panacea of answers. Instead, what follows are a few musings to wrap up ideas from Thursday based on my adventures across the science, policy, and pop culture worlds..
Framing's not a one-size-fits-all concept. Furthermore, not everything 'science' need necessarily be 'Framed' - it's entirely case specific. Big, immediate global concerns traversing disciplines and stakeholders are where we should…
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…
cmooney | May 24, 2007Dr. Montgomery McFate, a noted anthropologist and Pentagon consultant currently based at the U.S. Institute for Peace, has pointed out an historical military role of her academic field in understanding the local populace during the Colonial period. Despite this intermingled history of anthropology and the military, however, modern-day defense policymakers and academic researchers rarely play well together in the proverbial sandbox. In general, a Cold War-era preoccupation with technological superiority, combined with the negative aftereffects of poor cultural understanding of opposing forces…
cmooney | May 23, 2007Imagine you're a legislative staffer on Capitol Hill..
Short on time would be an understatement.
In comes Joe scientist carrying charts and referencing stats and p-values. 'Let's talk Global Warming!' Again?! He's the fourth PhD this afternoon. Kind of seems like old news. Today's topic is how Iran ignored the U.N. Security Council and your boss needs to make a statement on CNN's The Situation Room in 2 hours. Thanks for the information Joe, glad you stopped in.
Wait.. WHAT?!
Allow me to take this opportunity to discuss linguistics. First and foremost, a change in terminology is in order…
cmooney | May 23, 2007Much emphasis in traditional conservation is paced on 'charismatic megafauna,' meaning the species that we all know and love. The heroes of the big screen. Save the Oceans for Flipper and Free Willy. Keep those penguins marching and the polar bears drinking Coca-Cola. Market the smiling dolphins, the majestic blue whales, and those adorable baby seals. 'Save the Sea Cucumber' just doesn't have the same clout. Package your landscape or region of choice under the umbrella of huggable marine mammal and everyone's on board to clean up the next oil spill and protest dynamite fishing. All in…