media and science policy debates matthew nisbet american university school of communication washington nt

Media Agenda Public Experts Policymakers NGOs Journalists Attention Importance Evaluation Salience Context Relevance Attribution Agenda & Frame BuildingJudgments & Decisions

Mediated Issue Development Dramatic Discourse Technical Discourse Dramatic Discourse Focusing Event Cycle Continues Technical Discourse overtly political policy arena administrative policy arena overtly political policy arena administrative policy arena transitiontransition transitiontransition transitiontransition transitiontransition Type of journalist Political/ opinion political / opinion specialist Media attention pre-problem stage Nisbet, Brossard, Kroepsch, 2003; Nisbet & Huge, 2006; Downs, 1972; Hilgartner & Bosk, 1988; McComas & Shanahan, 1999

Technical Discourse Nisbet, Brossard, Kroepsch, 2003 NY Times and Washington Post

Dramatic Discourse Nisbet, Brossard, Kroepsch, 2003 NY Times and Washington Post

Balance as Bias or Flogging a Dead Norm? Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004; Boykoff, 2007 Coverage 1988 to 2002 at NYTimes, Wpost, WSJ, and LA Times

Balance as Bias or Flogging a Dead Norm? Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004; Boykoff, 2007 NYTimes, Wpost, WSJ, LA Times, and USA Today.

NY Times, WPost, WSJ, Politico, CNN.com

Feldman et al., 2011

Feldman et al. (2011). FOX NEWS VIEWING

Global Warming’s Six Americas 64%

Stage 1: In-Depth Interviews w/ 70 Subjects from Six Distinct Audience Segments (Summer 2009) Maibach, E., Nisbet, M.C. et al. (2010). BMC Public Health 10: 299.

Segments 4-6: Sentence Specific Reaction To Public Health Essay Scores reflect respondent average values by segment for the difference between the number of times each of 18 sentences were marked “especially clear or helpful” and “especially confusing or unhelpful.”