Matthew C. Nisbet
Associate Professor of Communication, Northeastern University
Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Public Policy, and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. Nisbet studies the role of communication and advocacy in policymaking and public affairs, focusing on debates over over climate change, energy, and sustainability. Among awards and recognition, Nisbet has been a Visiting Shorenstein Fellow on Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, a Health Policy Investigator at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and a Google Science Communication Fellow. In 2011, the editors at the journal Nature recommended Nisbet's research as “essential reading for anyone with a passing interest in the climate change debate,” and the New Republic highlighted his work as a “fascinating dissection of the shortcomings of climate activism."
–Guest post by Declan Fahy, AoE’s Science and Culture correspondent. Can popular science writing help diagnose a medical condition? It did for me. Since I was a teenager I had […]
As part of the American University project documenting the history of investigative reporting, School of Communication professor Charles Lewis asked Bob Woodward to reflect on the Bush administration’s ability to […]
To say that we tend to demonize oil companies is an understatement. And for good reason, given the role in the past of companies like Exxon Mobil in sowing doubt […]
My brother Erik Nisbet, a professor of communication at The Ohio State University, will be giving a free webinar today on climate change communication, sponsored by the Changing Climate project […]
As I wrote last week, the Breakthrough Dialogues launched in 2011 as one of America’s top new thought leader forums, in part because of the cross-cutting ideological discussion and mix […]
On Saturday, the Obama 2012 campaign officially launched with rallies held at Ohio State and Virginia Commonwealth University. Amy Gardner and Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post offered details on […]
If President Obama is re-elected in the Fall, he is likely to face a Congress even more polarized than today, with the ideological divide greater than at anytime since before […]
TED meetings, Aspen Institutes, SXSW, and Sundance are all billed as “thought-leader gatherings” where “rock stars” emerge from their “silos” to learn about “disruptive” ideas that have been carefully “curated,” […]
Tim Caulfield, author of The Cure for Everything, and who spoke at American University last week, has some terrific insights over at the Huffington Post on common health myths that […]
In his 2010 book “The Audacity to Win,” Obama 2008 campaign director David Plouffe explained that the goal of the campaign was not only to ensure high participation and turn […]
Two recently published books caught my eye today at the World Bank bookstore here in Washington, DC and I’ve put both at the top of my list to read and […]
At the Washington Post’s The Fix, Chris Cillizza has this to say about Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein’s must read op-ed from the Sunday Post: The truth of the matter though […]
At the Chronicle of Higher Educationthis week, the Open University’s Martin Weller has a very strong essay on why blogging for many should be a central part of a scholar’s […]
–Guest post by Kathrina Maramba, American University graduate student. Most of us know what we fear about nuclear energy. We fear its perceived unpredictability, its potential utility in weapons creation, and […]
Ari Phillips — a graduate student in journalism at the University of Texas — has started a unique project documenting the story of climate change in the U.S. Southwest via […]
In September 2011, Pew released the latest in its annual “Views of the News Media” survey, showing that Democrats have moved closer to Republicans in their dissatisfaction with the performance […]
Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institute and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute have a must-read essay in today’s Washington Post titled “Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans Are […]
My American University colleague Charles Lewis with a team of partners has launched a fascinating new multi-media initiative called “Investigating Power,” which features oral history interviews with the country’s great […]
As I wrote last year in a chapter at the Oxford Handbook of Climate Change & Society, the imagined public relative to climate change remains a source of ever growing anxiety […]
As I’ve been writing about for the past several years, the key to public engagement on climate change is to tell personally relevant stories about the issue. An effective method […]
For Washington, DC readers, please join us and spread the word about the presentation tomorrow (Wed. April 25) at American University by Timothy Caulfield, among Canada’s leading experts in the […]
At Canada’s Globe and Mail today, University of Alberta professor of law Tim Caulfield observes that North American culture appears to have lost its infatuation with genetics and stem cell […]
Over the past year, I’ve read about a half dozen of Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo’s novels. If you are heading on vacation this summer, I recommend you pick a […]
For Washington, DC readers, please join us and spread the word about the Wed. April 25 presentation at American University by Timothy Caulfield, among Canada’s leading experts in the area […]
As I’ve argued on climate change, localizing the issue is one way to overcome the polarization that has paralyzed national-level action. And this strategy holds not just for climate, but […]
In a Q&A interview with Jason Zengerle of New York magazine, outgoing Congressman Barney Frank offers a diagnosis of several of the major drivers of polarization in American politics that […]
The news service for the College of Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin has a good summary of a recent article at The Scientist by several colleagues who spotlight […]
–Guest post by Erin Brett, American University graduate student. Last month, in advance of April Fools Day, CBS Morning News correspondent and satirist Mo Rocca met with the cast of […]
–Guest post by Nicole Federica, American University student. News reports tracking the obesity epidemic in the United States offer a range of possible explanations for the problem. These include government […]
–Guest post by Alyssa Martori, American University graduate student. People around the world working toward environmental preservation, conservation, and sustainability are often described as part of a global environmental movement. […]