Guest Thinkers

One of the arguments I have been making in talking to journalists is to beware the hype over the relative impact of the climate skeptics movement in contributing to societal […]

From the Associated Press to the Guardian to Reuters to Agence France Presse,protesters and journalists create a confusing storyline focused on chaos, conflict, and law and orderIt’s too early to […]

Roughly 90 scientists, journalists, educators, PIOs, and policy staffers turned out to Sunday afternoon’s AGU workshop on climate change communication. I will have more to say about the panel in […]

Overlooked in the coverage and discussion of Copenhagen are the remarks of Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who in his speech at the summit emphasized that the real future of policy […]

Slides and synchronized video of the presentations from the AGU panel “Re-Starting the Conversation on Climate Change: The Media, Dialogue, and Public Engagement Workshop” are now online. Below I link […]

The American University news media relations office is running a Web feature that focuses on many of the themes discussed at this blog. The feature is in the form of […]

Last month, I did an interview with the Philadelphia City Paper on the stolen CRU emails. The feature story provides useful background and context on the communication dynamics of the […]

CORRECTION: The Indicators Report will be released Friday, Jan. 15.The bi-annual NSF Science Indicators report will be released on Wednesday. Chapter 7 of the report will contain a useful synthesis […]

A recent article at the journal Science Communicationreports on an innovative EU program that trained scientists in public engagement and science-society relations. Along with the Leopold Leadership Program, it is […]

After nearly 8 years as founding editor of The Scientist magazine, Richard Gallagher is stepping down to pursue new journalistic ventures. Gallagher helmed The Scientist as it grew into one […]

I am in Banff this week participating in a fascinating workshop on the scientific, clinical, ethical, and communication issues related to personalized medicine and genomics. A special issue of the […]

At Knight Science Tracker, Charlie Petit has the details on one of the first examples of non-profit, localized coverage of science, a trend I have argued is necessary and worthy […]

Michael Moore is in a class by himself when it comes to generating news attention, advance publicity, and box office for his documentary films. For example, when I was in […]

Earlier this month, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation officially announced its 2009 Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research. Ten projects involving sixteen scholars from the country’s top research universities were […]

This week, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting released a report on best practices in digital journalism that I co-authored with several colleagues here at American University and the Center for […]

Now that Richard Dawkins has a new book out intended to introduce evolutionary science to a wider audience, is he re-framing his message on science and religion to allow for […]

Tonight, the AU School of Communication’s American Forum series focuses on “Change + 1: Are young voters talking back to Obama?” A diverse panel of experts will look not only […]

This week Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story ($9.9 million) edged past Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed ($7.7 million) on the list of top grossing political documentaries. For more […]

In today’s Washington Post, former editor Leonard Downie and communication scholar Michael Schudson preview the release of a major new study on the future of news. Below are some of […]

The Trust for America’s Health and the Pew Environment Group released a report yesterday focusing attention on the public health impacts of climate change. The report is the latest in […]

Creation is scheduled for a Dec./Jan. release in U.S. Theaters.David Kirby is a geneticist turned science communication scholar who studies the depiction of science in popular film and the role […]

Last week’s Pew survey on American views of climate change generated a sizable amount of speculation and debate from bloggers and other commentators. See for example this round up at […]

Over at the Knight Science Tracker, Charlie Petit has a round-up on news coverage of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine’s first significant research grants for stem cell research. Though […]

Repower America’s lastest advertising campaign to promote their new online feature “The Wall” is brilliant. The ads and the social media initiative vividly portray the diversity of support for serious […]

The faculty here at American University’s School of Communication include several of the country’s leading environmental filmmakers with their work coordinated through the Center for Environmental Filmmaking. One of our […]

Over at Dot Earth, the NY Times Andrew Revkin has a good round up and preview on Gore’s new book Our Choice. His post also includes an embedded 30 minute […]

For their upcoming annual meetings in San Francisco, the American Geophysical Union is sponsoring a pre-conference workshop introducing scientists, public information officers, journalists, and other attendees to several areas of […]

Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions has released a primer on the “Psychology of Climate Change Communication,” synthesizing much of the research of the Center over the past […]

Earlier this year, in an article at Nature Biotechnology, I joined with several colleagues in warning that the biggest risk to public trust in science is not the usual culprits […]

For DC readers, NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco will be speaking at American University tonight. Details are below In 1998, Lubchenco as president of AAAS argued for a new social contract […]