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Matthew C. Nisbet
Associate Professor of Communication, Northeastern University
Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Public Policy, and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. Nisbet studies the role of communication and advocacy in policymaking and public affairs, focusing on debates over over climate change, energy, and sustainability. Among awards and recognition, Nisbet has been a Visiting Shorenstein Fellow on Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, a Health Policy Investigator at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and a Google Science Communication Fellow. In 2011, the editors at the journal Nature recommended Nisbet's research as “essential reading for anyone with a passing interest in the climate change debate,” and the New Republic highlighted his work as a “fascinating dissection of the shortcomings of climate activism."
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The 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. […]
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 […]
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” […]
The 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 […]
Last 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 […]
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 […]
Has 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Oxford 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 […]
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 […]
Big 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 […]
Pew has released an analysis of the most frequently used words at the most popular sections of the presidential candidate Web sites, their candidate biographies. The findings are somewhat surprising, […]
Last week, analysts at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty released a 70 page analysis of the strategies, tactics, and messages of the Sunni insurgent propaganda campaign. It’s the most interesting thing […]
As I’ve argued, one of the reasons I find the New Atheist PR campaign so troubling is that it is has radicalized a movement that feeds on anger and fear […]
As part of their conversation series with scientists, the NY Times this week runs an interview with Harvard’s Eric Mazur featuring the headline “Using the ‘Beauties of Physics’ to Conquer […]
The Sunday Washington Post leads with a story that greenhouse gas mitigation proposals in Congress are likely to stall, in part because several key lawmakers believe (or at least claim) […]
The Center for American Progress has released a valuable analysis of the factors that account for the huge ideological imbalance in political talk radio. Here’s what they pinpoint as the […]
Pew has released a survey analysis comparing American Muslims to other American religious groups, comparing levels of religious intensity, political identification, and policy preferences. I summarize and quote from some […]
In an essay at the Web site of Skeptic magazine, David Sloan Wilson, author of Darwin’s Cathedral, concludes that when it comes to a scientific understanding of religion, Dawkins is […]