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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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How much impact has Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth had on the global warming debate? More generally, how can we understand the range of influences that a documentary film might have […]
Last week, global warming cracked the top 5 news stories at Pew’s media attention index, but only accounted for roughly 5% of the total news hole across outlets, dwarfed by […]
What accounts for the striking partisan differences in public perceptions of global warming? As I’ve detailed (here and here), it’s a combined result of strong opinion-cues from party leaders and […]
With political leaders like Senator James Inhofe and ideological safe zones like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page, is it any wonder that only 23% of college-educated […]
Friday’s IPCC report represents history’s most definitive statement of scientific consensus on climate change, yet despite the best efforts of scientists, advocates, and several media organizations to magnify wider attention […]
GRAPH: MAJOR NEWSPAPER ATENTION TO “BLOOD” OR “CONFLICT” DIAMONDSAll eyes in the science advocacy community will be on Paris tomorrow, as the policymakers’ summary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate […]
Tuesday was “open mike” day at Senator Barbara Boxer’s Environment and Public Works committee, reports the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin. Senate Dems including Barak Obama took stage to hammer home […]
Over the weekend I spotlighted a Washington Post article on the Association of American Publishers’ hiring of the “PR Pit Bull” to frame their attacks on free access to federally-financed […]
Scientists and environmental advocates will watch with excited anticipation on Friday as the policymakers’ summary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is released in Paris, France. The IPCC reports […]
Throughout January, PBS has been test piloting three science programs on channels across the country and via streaming video online at their Web site. According to PBS mag Current, one […]
Brace yourself for the 2008 You-Tube election. When it comes to presidential campaigns, many Americans make up their minds about candidates not based on the issues, but rather based on […]
Things just went from bad to terrible for the image of the Association of American Publishers. Rick Weiss in today’s WPost spotlights the Association’s hiring of “PR Pit Bull” Eric […]
As disappointing as this week’s State of the Union address might have been to many climate change advocates, in today’s Washington Post, Peter Baker and Steven Mufson have a revealing […]
Survey trends show that atheists are America’s least trusted minority, ranking below Muslims, recent immigrants, homosexuals and other groups. Moreover, Pew studies indicate that Americans are very comfortable with religion […]
The BBC in collaboration with the British think tank Demos has launched a “national series of conversations about new technologies, the future and society.” Brits are encouraged to participate in […]
From high culture to pop culture, art can serve as a rallying point for social groups and activists who want to publicize their reservations about areas of science and technology. […]
I’ve noted in recent presentations and posts the strong role of partisanship in how Americans view the science and relative urgency of global warming. Yet according to a Pew survey […]
At the Washington Post today , Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald report on the diverging priorities of House speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic chairmen John Dingell and Henry Waxman, […]
Across most nationally representative surveys, if you measure Evangelical christians as those respondents who identify themselves as “evangelical” and who also, when given a multiple choice question, answer that the […]
Something’s rotten in Denmark. Conservatives once again have sprung a media trap on Al Gore, but this time overseas.At the Wall Street Journal , “skeptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg and Danish […]