Applying Science Communication Research to Policy Debates: What Role for Scientists and their Organizations?
In 2009, I contributed a chapter to the edited volume Communicating Biological Sciences: Ethical and Metaphorical Dimensions that was a first attempt on my part to dig deeper into the the normative and ethical dimensions of science communication, particularly many of the questions that had been raised by the growing attention to communication research over the decade...
Online News and the End of Political Disagreement
As our political and media systems rapidly evolve, social scientists are revisiting and updating existing models, theories, and methods for investigating the effects of the media on political attitudes and behavior. Among topics, understanding the relationship between media and political polarization remains perhaps the most complex and challenging. For the 2012 edition of Communication Yearbook, an annual...
Public Opinion and Participation in the Climate Change Debate
Public opinion about climate change, observes the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin, can be compared to “waves in a shallow pan,” easily tipped with “a lot of sloshing but not a lot of depth.” In a recently published chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, I review research that provides several explanations...
