Matthew Nisbet
Professor of Communication at Northeastern University.
nisbetmc
Posts by this author
January 19, 2008
Scholars have long warned about the increasing sound bite nature of our media and political system, but overlooked is the visual nature of this trend. A new study in the Journal of Communication is the first to systematically track and contextualize this troubling tendency of the American public…
January 17, 2008
Media Matters for America, a liberal media watch dog organization, has released an analysis of sourcing patterns of religious leaders in news coverage. From the intro to the report:
Religion is often depicted in the news media as a politically divisive force, with two sides roughly paralleling the…
January 17, 2008
Michael Pollan was interviewed recently on WNYC about his new book "A Defense of Eating." Well worth listening to...
January 16, 2008
In a report on the 2007 activities of the Center for Inquiry, chair Paul Kurtz adds further to how he differentiates a positive and life affirming secular view of the world from the arguments of the so-called New Atheists. Here's what Kurtz writes:
The new atheism, so-called, provoked widespread…
January 16, 2008
The National Science Foundation has released a PDF version of the 2008 edition of Science Indicators. Every two years, Chapter 7 of the report reviews the latest research tracking public opinion about science and technology.
Over the coming weeks, I will be posting regularly about key implications…
January 16, 2008
I'm told that more than 170 have RSVPed for tonight's Framing Science talk and panel discussion at the House of Sweden in Georgetown. Details here.
January 16, 2008
In reaction to policymaking that they believe ignores or distorts scientific expertise, scientists more and more are assuming direct advocacy roles. The latest sign from today's Washington Post:
Two dozen scientists swarmed over Capitol Hill this week mad as vespinae ( hornets) at what they say…
January 15, 2008
The Columbia Journalism Review has formally launched a department dedicated to science and environmental reporting. Curtis Brainard, who has been covering the beat at CJR, will be chief reporter. His first online article details the problems and challenges ScienceDebate 2008 faces in gaining news…
January 15, 2008
Conventional wisdom pegs 2007 as the long awaited tipping point in waking the American public up to the urgency of global warming. Yet as I review in my latest "Science and the Media" column at Skeptical Inquirer Online, such optimism runs up against the reality of public opinion.
Despite Gore's…
January 15, 2008
This semester at American University, I am teaching an advanced undergraduate/graduate seminar on Political Communication. Needless to say, it's the right time and the right city to be teaching this course. I've included a link to the the syllabus which contains hyperlinks to many of the assigned…
January 15, 2008
As funding and budgets flat line at the National Institutes of Health, science organizations are hoping to make NIH funding part of the election discussion. In a smart way, they are framing the issue in terms of social progress with the catchphrase "Science Cures," making personally relevant the…
January 12, 2008
One of the political predictions I've heard goes like this: since Florida is frequently hit by hurricanes, competency at emergency preparedness is more of a salient consideration for Floridians, and that gives Rudy Giuliani an edge in the primary. What do readers think?
Assuming emergency…
January 11, 2008
Next week on Wednesday I will be joined by several stellar panelists for a Science Cafe discussion at the Swedish Embassy aka the House of Sweden. Built last year, the embassy is an architectural marvel sitting on some of the best real estate in the Georgetown waterfront.
You don't want to miss…
January 11, 2008
An editorial by 17 professional societies at the FASEB Journal details the findings of a new survey on public opinion about evolution. The editorial closes by urging new approaches to public engagement, citing and echoing our Framing Science thesis at Science:
These data indicate that Americans…
January 10, 2008
WAMU's Kojo Namdi Show spotlights labor rights for part-time faculty. You can listen to the full show here
Labor Rights for Part-time College Professors
For Washington-area universities, the large pool of professionals willing to teach on a part-time basis is an embarrassment of riches. But some…
January 10, 2008
The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism conducted an analysis of post-NH newspaper and television coverage and has a critical review of the "reverse direction" narrative.
January 10, 2008
The Clinton team has added a new message guru, advertising and branding wizard Roy Spence. From ABC News.com:
Spence, 60, a longtime friend of the Clintons, is the quirky Austin-based advertising legend who coined the phrase "Don't Mess With Texas," and developed the Southwest Airlines slogan, "…
January 10, 2008
Perhaps the best quote on the horse race coverage goes to USC professor Marty Kaplan writing at the Huffington Post:
I wonder whether this humiliating turnabout, played out in real time over a very short period right in front of the American people, could be the MSM's Katrina. Political media, you'…
January 10, 2008
In a lengthy column at today's Washington Post, media reporter Howard Kurtz pulls no punches in criticizing the horse race coverage that has defined the primary races: "The series of blown calls amount to the shakiest campaign performance yet by a profession seemingly addicted to snap judgments and…
January 9, 2008
Out of all the suggestions that have been thrown around about who should be the next Presidential science advisor, I think Bora over at A Blog Around the Clock might have hit on the best choice and that's Harold Varmus.
As I noted in a previous post discussing the possibility of Francis Collins as…
January 9, 2008
At ABC News.com, survey expert and Stanford professor Jon Krosnick has more on the likely primacy ballot effect that I reported on this morning:
Until this year, New Hampshire rotated candidate name order from precinct to precinct, which allowed us to do that analysis.
This year, the secretary of…
January 9, 2008
American University students watch the Iowa Caucus returns as they prepare to head to New Hampshire to cover, film and analyze the first presidential primary in 2008. Photo by Glenn Luther.
The New Hampshire primary drew the analytical eye of 28 undergraduate and graduate students from American…
January 9, 2008
One other possible explanation for the inaccurate NH poll predictions is the so-called Bradley Effect. Below is part of the discussion at Slate, a hypothesis that Krosnick is then quoted as doubting:
This sort of jarring of our expectations conjures up past examples of black candidates who have…
January 9, 2008
Jon Krosnick, a professor of Communication at Stanford and perhaps the top expert in survey methodology, hypothesizes that the pre-primary polls in New Hampshire might have been wrong because they failed to take into account the NH ballot design and the miserly nature of voters. In public opinion…
January 8, 2008
Key exit poll indicators explaining Hillary's unexpected showing in New Hamsphire:
She carried registered Dems 45% to 34% over Obama. Dems made up 54% of those voting in the primary compared to 43% independents who turned out.
She carried Baby Boomers, 50 and over, roughly 43% to 32% for Obama.…
January 8, 2008
Despite his deep faith and frequent use of religious language, Obama is the clear favorite in New Hampshire among the non-religious. According to the exit polls, among the 22% of NH Democratic primary voters who identified as having no religious affiliation, nearly half (46%) voted for Obama…
January 7, 2008
As I wrote yesterday, the key indicator following Obama's expected win in New Hampshire tomorrow night will be the distance that he has closed in the subsequent national polls. If he pulls even or ahead, it's over for Clinton.
In fact, according to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, Obama has…
January 7, 2008
Vanity Fair has the clues and the reader is left to connect the dots:
Film is set in 1957 (ten years after crash at Roswell), was shot in New Mexico, and in contrast to previous Indy Films that pay tribute to 1930s serials, this one takes inspiration from 1950s B movie science fiction. The…
January 7, 2008
The first two months that the new Fox Business Channel was on the air, it averaged a mere 6,900 viewers on any given weekday. The handful of viewers for the new Fox venture equals about 2% of the audience for its chief rival CNBC News.
With so many structural challenges plaguing Americans' ability…
January 6, 2008
Obama's Iowa momentum has proven too much for Hillary Clinton's campaign team to fight off. With multiple polls in New Hampshire showing a double digit lead for Obama, it looks like there is no chance that Clinton will be the Comeback Kid in Tuesday's primary. Depending on turn out, even a third…