Guest Thinkers

The major news organizations, especially the big three cable news networks, need a crash courses in ethics. Given all the major issues taking place in the world, how can they […]

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 […]