Matthew Nisbet
Professor of Communication at Northeastern University.
nisbetmc
Posts by this author
October 10, 2008
How difficult has it been for economists to communicate their expertise to policy makers during this financial crisis? The Chronicle of Higher Education has this report:
During the days after the White House announced its rescue proposal, economists of diverse stripes drafted plans, petitions, and…
October 8, 2008
Democrats are far from innocent when it comes to twisting the reality of science policy for political gain. For example, back in 2004, when the Kerry/Edwards campaign tried to use stem cell research as a wedge issue against Republicans, Edwards infamously went well beyond the uncertainty of stem…
October 8, 2008
From the University of Pennsylvania's FactCheck.org, (listen to the ad and read the full analysis):
An Obama-Biden radio ad hammers McCain for being opposed to stem cell research. Not true. Meanwhile two spots from the McCain-Palin campaign, together with the Republican National Committee, describe…
October 8, 2008
Nielsen has released an interesting breakdown and comparison of the audiences for the first presidential debate and the VP debate.
According to Nielsen, sixty-one percent of all U.S. households watched at least one of the two 2008 election debates aired so far. Of all households, 39% watched…
October 6, 2008
If Bill Maher's strategy for landing interviews for his mockumentary Religulous sounds familiar, it's because it's the same method that Ben Stein & co. used for Expelled. From an LA Times blog:
So how did Maher manage to get all these people to actually talk to him? Since "Religulous" was…
October 6, 2008
Remember the Democratic New Hampshire primary? According to news organizations and many pollsters, the NH primary was supposed to be the loss that put Hillary Clinton out of contention and sealed an early nomination for Obama. Yet Clinton staged a surprise victory.
At the time, Washington Post…
October 5, 2008
With $3.5 million earned in its weekend box office debut, Bill Maher's Borat-inspired mockumentary about religion managed to just edge the opening weekend for Ben Stein's Expelled.
Religulous, which opened in half as many theaters as Expelled, outgrossed Stein's weekend take by roughly $600K.…
October 5, 2008
Just how bad has the information tide turned against McCain on the economy? The conservative Economist magazine, in survey results published this week, finds that economists overwhelmingly name Obama as more qualified to handle the economy.
More Democrats than Republican economists replied to the…
October 5, 2008
How critical is framing to effectively communicating about complex policy problems, especially under conditions of uncertainty? Just take a look at the debate over the economic crisis.
As I noted last week, the term "bailout" has locked in a specific framing of the issue that inflames populist…
October 5, 2008
For the fourth straight month, Framing Science ranks among the top 15 science-related blogs, as tracked by Wikio. The position of a blog in the Wikio ranking depends on the number and weight of the incoming links from other blogs. (Blogrolls are not taken into account and Wikio only counts links…
October 3, 2008
According to Nielsen, close to 70 million Americans tuned in to watch the Biden-Palin debate. For comparison, the 2004 vice presidential debate between V.P. Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards drew 43.6 million viewers. The second Bush/Clinton/Perot debate of 1992 also attracted 69.9 million viewers…
October 2, 2008
More people are following the nation's economic problems than almost any other public event over the past two decades. According to Pew, the percentage of Americans who say they are following the economic conditions "very closely" trails significantly only the 9/11 attacks and the Challenger…
October 1, 2008
Bill Maher's mockumentary Religulous opens in theaters on Friday. Judging by Maher's media interviews, it's more of the same type of sophomoric ridicule that has been so self-defeating to the atheist movement and that I have written about at this blog and in recent articles. Watch the trailer of…
October 1, 2008
A news release on a new survey from the Woodrow Wilson Center's project on nanotechnology:
Washington, DC -- A groundbreaking poll finds that almost half of U.S. adults have heard nothing about nanotechnology, and nearly nine in 10 Americans say they have heard just a little or nothing at all about…
September 30, 2008
Were Ronald Reagan and Carl Sagan the dominant communicators of the 1980s? Watching this past week the PBS American Experience biopic on Reagan reinforced in my mind the parallels between the president and the astronomer that I have mentioned at this blog before and during Q&A at talks.
The…
September 27, 2008
In the Post's Sunday Book Review, atheist and Georgetown professor Jacques Berlinerblau reviews Michael Novak's "No One Sees God: A Catholic Philosopher Attempts a Dialogue with the New Atheists."
In the review, Berlinerblau emphasizes many of the same points that I have made at this blog and in…
September 26, 2008
Given the complexities of pressing science-related issues such as climate change or biomedical research, we need a new breed of specialist journalist who covers the intersections of science and policy. Rick Weiss, recently retired from the Washington Post, or Andrew Revkin at the NY Times, are…
September 26, 2008
The Dartmouth investment banker and the Princeton professor.
It would be interesting to trace the origin of the term "bailout" as applied to the Bush administration's plan since the phrase has locked in a specific framing of the issue that inflames populist anger and caters to House Republicans'…
September 25, 2008
Back in July, I sat down for an hour long interview with the new TED-like social media site Big Think. The innovative project features "hundreds of hours of direct, unfiltered interviews with today's leading thinkers" segmented by topic category and spliced into 3 to 4 minute conversations.
The…
September 25, 2008
Bush-Gore Debates 2000: The focus was on performance rather than substance.
For those that have seen the Nisbet/Mooney Speaking Science 2.0 talks over the past year, you might have witnessed during the Q&A some disagreement over the merits of actually having the presidential candidates…
September 25, 2008
Bush-Gore Debates 2000: The focus was on performance rather than substance.
For those that have seen the Nisbet/Mooney Speaking Science 2.0 talks over the past year, you might have witnessed during the Q&A some disagreement over the merits of actually having the presidential candidates…
September 25, 2008
The TV networks are still a very powerful constituency and it's doubtful McCain will be a no-show unless the political advantages are absolutely clear. Even Fox News is going to be pissed about this one. From the LA Times:
The prospect of postponing Friday's debate rankled network executives, who…
September 23, 2008
As I wrote earlier today, how Sarah Palin's devout Pentecostal faith colors her views on complex policy problems such as Iraq or climate change is a relevant question that journalists should be asking.
Yet as a Pew analysis released this week finds, although Palin has dominated campaign coverage…
September 23, 2008
In another example of the strategic role that YouTube is playing in this year's election, the Huffington Post has linked to a video montage of McCain's pleas over the past year for the wisdom and need for greater deregulation. With the growth of the leftwing blogosphere, the continued prominence…
September 23, 2008
Appearing on NPR's Fresh Air to discuss his new book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," Friedman was asked by host Terry Gross whether or not the term "green energy" might be implicitly off-putting to many Americans. As Gross put it to Friedman "How do you shatter the boring, 'granola' image of the green…
September 23, 2008
Andrew Revkin at DotEarth has the scoop on "Green Inc." a new NY Times blog covering energy and business. If it comes close to having the impact as DotEarth, it will definitely be a welcome resource for coverage of major energy issues.
September 23, 2008
At the WPost, Juliet Eilperin pens a lengthy feature on the differences between Palin and McCain over the causes of global warming. Palin believes that the effects of climate change are impacting Alaska and has advocated for action, but continues to hedge on whether or not humans are a cause.…
September 22, 2008
AP report on an innovative survey by researchers at Stanford University:
Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks -- many calling…
September 22, 2008
Voters not yet committed to either candidate were 12% more engaged by TV coverage of the GOP convention than the Democratic convention, according to an analysis released Monday by Nielsen IAG.
September 20, 2008
From the NY Times Caucus Politics Blog:
In the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll, 63 percent of voters said they were paying a lot of attention to the campaign, up from 51 percent before the parties held their conventions. In September 2004, 52 percent said they were concentrating a lot on…