Matthew Nisbet – Communication, Culture & Politics In a Runaway World

News coverage after the 9/11 attacks: Reason and deliberative democracy put to the test

* I wrote the following essay in the weeks following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, drawing on insights gained during the first year of graduate school. I published a version of the essay at the Cornell Daily Sun and… Continue Reading →

2019/08/20

Science and tech in an age of anxiety: Analyzing public attitudes across 54 countries

July 9, 2019–From scientific meetings to corporate board rooms, civil society leaders express deep concern about a loss of public faith in technological innovation and the scientific enterprise. Rising tensions over issues such as automation, gene editing, and the transition… Continue Reading →

2019/07/09

Climate change tribalism won’t get us anywhere

May 7, 2019–Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma may be best known today for its picturesque lakes and trails, but for three weeks in 1954, the park was also the setting for one of the most famous experiments in social… Continue Reading →

2019/05/07

The science of why yoga quiets the mind: It’s about the breath

March 1, 2019 — I had been practicing yoga for a decade, but it took an unexplained injury to push me toward turning yoga into a daily routine. I had spent a brutally cold winter battling unexplained nerve pain in… Continue Reading →

2019/03/01

Climate philanthropy and the four billion (dollars, that is)

Jan 15, 2019– At the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, thousands of delegates representing local governments, businesses, philanthropies, and nonprofits gathered to send a message to the world. With Washington, DC, and other national capitals paralyzed by… Continue Reading →

2019/01/16

Strategic Communication Capstone: Course Syllabus

Jan 8, 2019–In this capstone seminar, you will complete an intensive research and writing project focused on a topic related to the field of communication studies. Possible research topics can span business, politics, advocacy, entertainment, public health, the environment, and… Continue Reading →

2019/01/08 0

Media advocacy and communication research: Syllabus and readings

Jan 8, 2019–In this course, you will learn about the major areas of research and debates related to advocacy, communication, and social change. You will connect scholarly work to insights from leading strategists and journalists, and to contemporary trends and… Continue Reading →

2019/01/07

Talking science and society at church: Why scientists need to be part of the conversation

January 1, 2019 — Over the past two decades, high profile debates over human origins, abortion, and stem cell research have distracted from the opportunities that scientists, skeptics, and religious Americans have to forge relationships built on common values and… Continue Reading →

2019/01/01

The Ecomodernists: A new way of thinking about climate change and human progress

Nov. 1, 2018 — Scientists expect this year globally to be the fourth-hottest on record, with the only warmer years being the three previous ones. Since 2001, we have lived on a planet that has experienced seventeen of the eighteen… Continue Reading →

2018/11/01

The IPCC report is a wake up call for scholars, advocates and funders

Oct. 10, 2018 —More than 170 countries pledged as part of the 2015 United Nations climate treaty to keep global temperature rise this century to lower than 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels and to strive to remain below 1.5C…. Continue Reading →

2018/10/10

Funding the News: Summary of Shorenstein Center study on foundations and nonprofit media

June 18, 2018–In a new Shorenstein Center study conducted with colleagues at Northeastern University, we assess major patterns in foundation support for nonprofit journalism and media in the half decade leading up to the 2016 election, focusing specifically on support… Continue Reading →

2018/06/18

Strategic philanthropy in the post cap-and-trade years: Summary of new paper on U.S. foundation funding

In a paper published this week, I review the history of U.S. philanthropic strategy relative to climate change, before assessing the important 5-year period following the defeat of the 2010 cap and trade bill and leading up to the 2016 elections…. Continue Reading →

2018/05/21

The gene editing conversation: Public dialogue will require major investments

In 2014 biochemist Jennifer Doudna of the University of California at Berkeley awoke from a nightmare that would shift the focus of her world-class scientific career. Two years earlier, with her colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier, now director of the Max Planck… Continue Reading →

2018/01/10

Divided expectations: Why we need a new dialogue about science, inequality, and society

If you are reading this column, you have likely benefited from the scientific and technological advances that have transformed the world’s economy. For well-educated professionals who form the core audience for popular science magazines, these innovations have created new wealth… Continue Reading →

2018/01/04

The Ecomodernists: Journalists reimagining a sustainable future

Sept. 3, 2017 — In The Planet Remade (2015), journalist Oliver Morton imagined a future scenario where the Earth’s climate has been changed by geoengineering. A collective of countries with little power in world affairs secretly agrees to a low-cost… Continue Reading →

2017/09/03 0

Evolution in the college classroom: Facilitating conversations about science and religion

Sept. 1, 2017 — For most American college students, their first serious encounter with the theory of evolution may come as part of an introductory biology course. As surprising as this might sound, the unfortunate reality is that in many… Continue Reading →

2017/09/01 0

Preface to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Climate Change Communication

July 19, 2017 — Because of the complexity and urgency of climate change, efforts to understand the problem’s social, cultural, and political dimensions must stretch beyond the environmental sciences and economics to be truly multi-disciplinary. To this end, over the past… Continue Reading →

2017/07/19 0

The mindfulness movement: How a Buddhist practice evolved into a scientific approach to life

May 1, 2017 — A few years ago, I took up the regular practice of meditation. Sitting in a quiet room, outside at a park, or on the train to work, I would assume an upright relaxed position and focus… Continue Reading →

2017/05/24 0