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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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Last month, I published with Dietram Scheufele “The Polarization Paradox: Why Hyperpartisanship Promotes Conservatism and Undermines Liberalism.” We detail in the article how liberals have become more like conservatives in their political […]
Effectively engaging the American public on climate change—including its causes, impacts, and solutions—remains both a major research question and a communication challenge. Effective public engagement requires understanding the cognitive, affective, […]
Modern campaigns have rarely focused on the issues, but in the 2012 election the level of moral outrage and anger is unprecedented. Even before the campaign, America was divided, but […]
–Guest post by Ezra Markowitz, doctoral candidate at the University of Oregon. The moral judgment system—the set of cognitive, emotional, social and motivational mechanisms responsible for producing our perceptions of […]
— Guest post by Tina Cipara, George Mason University graduate student. “For the first time in history, the people of the world can see each other and want to protect […]
For Washington, DC readers, Politics & Prose will be hosting a book event Sunday, June 10 at 1pm relevant to many of the themes discussed at this blog. Details below. America the […]
On Tuesday, May 22, I delivered a lecture as part of the National Academies’ Sackler Colloquium on the “Science of Science Communication,” reviewing the role of the media in science […]
In this week’s edition of the New Scientist magazine, I have a commentary article on the UK controversy over genetically modified wheat and the lobbying efforts in the U.S. to […]
On Tuesday, May 22, I will be delivering a lecture as part of the National Academies’ Sackler Colloquium on the “Science of Science Communication,” reviewing the role of the media […]
MSNBC’s Morning Joe is one of the few places on cable news where you can find genuine ideological cross-talk. It’s not surprising then that the program hosted this week University […]
–Guest post by Declan Fahy, AoE’s Science and Culture correspondent. Can popular science writing help diagnose a medical condition? It did for me. Since I was a teenager I had […]
As part of the American University project documenting the history of investigative reporting, School of Communication professor Charles Lewis asked Bob Woodward to reflect on the Bush administration’s ability to […]
To say that we tend to demonize oil companies is an understatement. And for good reason, given the role in the past of companies like Exxon Mobil in sowing doubt […]
My brother Erik Nisbet, a professor of communication at The Ohio State University, will be giving a free webinar today on climate change communication, sponsored by the Changing Climate project […]
As I wrote last week, the Breakthrough Dialogues launched in 2011 as one of America’s top new thought leader forums, in part because of the cross-cutting ideological discussion and mix […]
On Saturday, the Obama 2012 campaign officially launched with rallies held at Ohio State and Virginia Commonwealth University. Amy Gardner and Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post offered details on […]
If President Obama is re-elected in the Fall, he is likely to face a Congress even more polarized than today, with the ideological divide greater than at anytime since before […]
TED meetings, Aspen Institutes, SXSW, and Sundance are all billed as “thought-leader gatherings” where “rock stars” emerge from their “silos” to learn about “disruptive” ideas that have been carefully “curated,” […]
Tim Caulfield, author of The Cure for Everything, and who spoke at American University last week, has some terrific insights over at the Huffington Post on common health myths that […]
In his 2010 book “The Audacity to Win,” Obama 2008 campaign director David Plouffe explained that the goal of the campaign was not only to ensure high participation and turn […]