Erik C. Nisbet

Erik C. Nisbet

Associate Professor; Owen L. Coon Endowed Professor of Policy Analysis and Communication

Email:
erik.nisbet@northwestern.edu

Department(s):
Communication Studies

Erik C. Nisbet is the Owen L. Coon Endowed Professor of Policy Analysis & Communication and director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. His research lies at the intersection of communication, public opinion, and public policy in the areas of science, technology, and environmental policy, governance and elections, and international security. An expert on cross-national survey methodology and field experiments, Erik has led research projects in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Turkey, Iran, France, Great Britain, Germany, Poland, and several Arab countries. His research has been supported by multiple grants from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of State.

Erik’s scholarship centers on three broad theoretical questions: 1) how strongly held partisan, national, religious, or ethnic identities bias the processing of media or persuasive messages and the consequences for policy attitudes and behavior, 2) causes and consequences of online information-seeking and expression in authoritarian and non-democratic contexts, and 3) how macro contextual factors interact with individual differences or behaviors to explain heterogeneity in communication processes and outcomes.

Education

Ph.D. Communication and Comparative Politics, Cornell University
M.S. Communication, Cornell University
B.A. Government and International Relations, Cornell University

Affiliations

Director, Center for Communication & Public Policy
Non-residential faculty fellow, USC Center on Public Diplomacy
Non-residential faculty affiliate, OSU Mershon Center for International Security Studies
Co-Principal Investigator, Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP)

Recent Academic Publications

Dal, A. and Nisbet, E.C. (in press). To share or not to share? How emotional judgements drive online political expression in high-risk contests. Communication Research

Nisbet, E.C. and Kamenchuk, O. (2019). The psychology of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and implications for the future of public diplomacy. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy. 14(1-2), 65-82

Wojcieszak, M.E., Nisbet, E.C., Kremer, L., Behrouzian, G., Glynn, C. (2019). What drives media use in autocratic regimes? Extending selective exposure theory to Iran. International Journal of Press Politics 24(1), 69-91

Gunther, R., Beck, P.A., Nisbet, E.C. (2019). Fake News’ and the Defection of 2012 Obama Voters in the 2016 Presidential Election. Electoral Studies. 61

Guo, T., Nisbet, E.C., Martin, J. (2019). Identifying mechanisms of environmental decision-making: How ideology and geographic proximity influence public support for regulating agricultural runoff to curb harmful algal blooms. Journal of Environmental Management. 241 (1), 264-272