Blogging/New Media
nisbetmc | March 16, 2007
By way of the Internet, Americans today have more public affairs and science-related information available to them than at any time in history. Yet the availability of information does not mean people will use it. Given the many competing alternatives across entertainment, celebrity culture, and other diversionary content, only those Internet users with a very strong preference for public affairs will use the medium for "hard" news on a regular base.
This general pattern of Internet consumption is once again reflected in the just released "Pew State of the News" survey. In the section…
nisbetmc | March 12, 2007
When knowledge challenges values or cuts against preferred policies, you attack the messenger, and then invent your own rival knowledge. That's been the playbook for the conservative movement over the past thirty years.
Attack the so-called "liberal" media and launch interest groups masquerading as news organizations (think Fox News.)
Attack so-called liberal economists and scientists, and launch your own rival think tank science. Think trickle-down economics, intelligent-design creationism, and climate skepticism....
And now, conservatives attack the "liberal" knowledge collaboratively…
nisbetmc | March 12, 2007
Update your RSS feeds, there's a major new blog on the scene that is worth reading. Framing Conflict was launched a few months back, with a focus on the media's role in shaping international conflict. The blog is authored by my brother Erik, who is finishing up his doctoral work in political communication at Cornell University. His dissertation examines Anti-Americanism abroad and Islamophobia in the U.S, topics he tracks at Framing Conflict.
Here are just a few highlights from recent posts:
Can hip-hop be used as a tool for cultural diplomacy?
Obama bin laden: Will Islamo-phobia be a…
nisbetmc | February 14, 2007At the beginning of the spring semester, I noted that the Political Communication Seminar at the University of Virginia and the English 12 course at UNC-Chapel Hill were making use of blogs in their course work, and were using Framing Science as a shining example!
Here at American University, the School of Communication has created a page highlighting just a few of the many examples of how blogging technology is being incorporated into the curriculum for students majoring in journalism, strategic communication, and film. Check it out.
nisbetmc | February 14, 2007
Irony can be an effective persuasion tool. As pictured on the Drudge Report this morning with the headline: HEARING ON 'WARMING OF PLANET' CANCELED BECAUSE OF ICE STORM. The headline links to a Drudge posted press release, likely sent his way by staffers in the James Inhofe "Big Oil" wing of the GOP.
HOUSE HEARING ON 'WARMING OF THE PLANET' CANCELED AFTER ICE STORM
HEARING NOTICE
Tue Feb 13 2007 19:31:25 ET
The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building has been postponed due to…
nisbetmc | February 13, 2007
Where once it was the province of against-the-establishment rebels and citizen media types, major institutions are now taking wide advantage of blogging technology to promote their message or to expand their audience. And it's not just major media outlets like the Washington Post or the NY Times, even Congressional lawmakers are getting in on the act.
Here at scienceblogs.com, individual scientists and others weigh in, but recently over at Year of Science 2009, a consortium of science organizations have started doing it at the institutional level.
Yet how long will it be until other…
nisbetmc | January 29, 2007Throughout 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 pilot is a spin-off of Wired magazine, another a "Science Investigators" version of PBS' popular "History Investigators" series, and the third a futurist "22nd Century" program.
In combination with these pilots, PBS rolled out focus group and national survey project to monitor responses among the "innovative and inclined" segment of their audience. Doing this type of "real time" research as part of the…
nisbetmc | January 28, 2007
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 "low information" signals about the candidate's personal narrative and character. For example, in 2004, the Bush campaign stuck to a very successful internal theme in plotting external message strategy: Who would you rather have a beer with, Bush or Kerry?
Not only is the candidate's perceived likeability important, so is their appearance of competence in handling the many dynamics and unexpected turns of…
nisbetmc | January 16, 2007University classes for the spring semester are in full swing, and several courses have integrated blogs and the evaluation of such into their class content. As previously posted, UNC's English 12 course has paid a visit here to Framing Science, and now UVA's Dept. of Politics seminar on Political Communication is doing likewise.
Welcome students from Prof. Claiborne's course. Please have fun navigating and evaluating my blog. Feel free to leave comments, suggestions, and feedback in the comments section of this post or others.
Of interest as political science majors, from the fall…
nisbetmc | January 16, 2007A warm welcome to students from UNC's English 12 course.
Please have fun navigating and evaluating my blog. Feel free to leave comments, suggestions, and feedback in the comments section of this post. Also of interest, from the fall semester, see this class blog debate" involving the students from my Communication & Society course here at American University, and the reading list for the same course scheduled this spring.
nisbetmc | January 15, 2007
Every Tuesday, the Project for Excellence in Journalism will be releasing their weekly news index report, an analysis that tracks the major stories across media sectors including daily newspapers, online news, network TV news, cable news, and radio. Last week was the first report for 2007.
According to their numbers, the top story across all outlets was the official takeover by new Democratic Congressional leadership, which made up 15% of the overall newshole. That was followed by the death and state funeral of Gerald R. Ford (12%). The debate over U.S. Iraq policy finished third at 9%. By…
nisbetmc | January 5, 2007
Gallup just released the latest in their trends on news consumption patterns. There's a lot to debate about these poll measures, but they do provide one indicator among many about what might be going on with audiences. In fact, these numbers are best compared for reliability against the annual Pew Center for the People and the Press news consumption surveys and other sources.
According to Gallup, local TV news continues to dominate as an information source for Americans, with 55% reporting that they tune into the medium every day. This pattern has held steady for the past ten years.…
nisbetmc | January 5, 2007
Haven't heard of Second Life? It's a 3-D virtual world built by users or "residents" worldwide. Imagine the video game World of Warcraft, but no game, just a cyber-community evolving in ways both similar and different from the real world.
The best way for me to describe Second Life is if you watch the news clip from Australian Broadcasting News above. Just press play.
The creations of this world, including island mansions, stores, fantasy theme parks, virtual lectures, films, and cocktail parties, are designed by the registered users or "residents." Users navigate these creations by way…
nisbetmc | January 2, 2007Looks like the the folks at the Project for Excellence in Journalism are about to launch a very interesting and much needed monthly media content analysis. Funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, this type of "industrial"-size quantitative analysis of news trends has been talked about for a long time, but no one has been able to pull it off. Consider this project to be the news content parallel to political polling. Here's what Peter Johnson in his Media Mix column at USA Today reports:
...this month when the Project for Excellence in Journalism kicks off an ambitious weekly study of what…
nisbetmc | December 25, 2006
After being named Time magazine's Person of the Year, I've updated my CV. Frank Rich in the Sunday Times glows with similar faux enthusiasm for the mag's cyber-cheerleading, as does Jon Stewart over at the Daily Show, just press play above.
Writes Rich:
As our country sinks deeper into a quagmire -- and even a conclusive Election Day repudiation of the war proves powerless to stop it -- we the people, and that includes, yes, you, will seek out any escape hatch we can find. In the Iraq era, the dropout nostrums of choice are not the drugs and drug culture of Vietnam but the equally self-…
nisbetmc | December 18, 2006
This week, Time magazine names all of us as "Person of the Year." According to Time's editors, in this Web 2.0 era of digital media, average netizens are transforming society in powerful ways, changing politics, community, and personal lives for the better.
"You control the media now!" declares Time in its cover feature. Here's more of the mag's hyperbole:
...look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of…
nisbetmc | December 13, 2006
There's nothing new about politicians using entertainment outlets to promote their presidential aspirations. In 1960, both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon appeared on Jack Parr's Tonight Show. Nixon even played the piano. Yet it was Bill Clinton with his saxophone playing 1992 appearance on the Arsenio Hall Show and his disclosure the same year on MTV that he prefers briefs over boxers, who made entertainment venues the norm for presidential candidates. In 2000, on Oprah, George W. Bush planted a big kiss on the famous host, charming millions of viewers.
Candidates go on these shows…
nisbetmc | December 5, 2006
A few readers know that I originally hail from outside of Buffalo, New York, home to some of the best hunting and fly fishing in the country. Recently my younger brother Drew launched the Dreams of Steele blog exploring the science and passion of fishing and hunting in the Upstate New York region. There is a little something for everyone at this multi-media site, including some great shots of the outdoors, and even this photo and post detailing Drew's first buck of the season. (And for those wondering, no I don't hunt, nor own a gun. For some reason, I escaped the fever.)
nisbetmc | December 1, 2006This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that Americans are using the Internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships.
For many college students, having grown up "online," it's easy to take for granted the "virtual" society we live in, seldom pausing to consider how it might be different from more traditional forms of community life. One of the goals of the course was to encourage students to think systematically and rigorously about the many changes introduced by…
nisbetmc | December 1, 2006This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that Americans are using the Internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships.
For many college students, having grown up "online," it's easy to take for granted the "virtual" society we live in, seldom pausing to consider how it might be different from more traditional forms of community life. One of the goals of the course was to encourage students to think systematically and rigorously about the many changes introduced by…