Guest Thinkers

One of the great paradoxes of contemporary society is that Americans by way of the Internet and specialized cable TV channels have greater access to scientific information than at any […]

Last week marked the ten year anniversary of the announcement of the cloned sheep Dolly. While the U.S. press largely passed on the moment, the Canadian and British media paid […]

As I’ve chronicled at this blog, the IPCC report was a massive failure as a communication moment. The inability of the IPCC report to break through to the wider public […]

War metaphors have long been employed in science, ranging from the “War on Cancer” to the “War on Science” itself. These frame devices help draw attention to an issue, and […]

The Golden Rule in politics is never promise something you can’t deliver. In 1997 Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol and committed to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to 6 percent below 1990 […]

In a column last year, I detailed the historical trajectory in the U.S. of frames on nuclear energy, with images moving from very positive interpretations centered on social progress and […]

With their short term focus on the state primaries, GOP candidates are jockeying for favor from the right wing of the Republican party, and somewhere Democratic strategists are probably smiling.It […]

Back in January, when a coalition of Big Industry CEOs and environmental groups got together to urge Congress and the President to pass “cap and trade” legislation on global warming […]

Over at The Intersection, my friend and colleague Chris Mooney has more thoughts on why the IPCC report failed to impact the wider media and public agenda. Mooney is in […]

NPR’s On the Media runs this week an excellent feature questioning why stock market downturns end up being the top story everywhere in the media. Media preoccupation with Wall Street, […]

In a fragmented media system, not only do people choose among news outlets and stories based on their ideology and partisanship, but also based on their preference, or lack thereof, […]

Last week’s Discovery Channel documentary on Jesus’ family tomb represents a leading example of how science, journalism, and theology often arrive at different answers based on competing assumptions, incentives, and […]

The Guardian has the details on the PR tactic of polar bear photos to (over)dramatize the impacts of global warming, tracing the idea to a 1993 Coca-Cola campaign. Here’s a […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Declaring that framing should be a central strategy, Ellen Goodman in today’s syndicated Boston Globe column issues a call to arms on climate change: “Can we change from debating global […]