The intersection of politics, science, health, and the environment is a central research area at the Center for Communication & Public Policy. CCPP researchers study how political cues, digital media, and strategic messaging influence the public’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors regarding polarized topics such as climate change, vaccination, and COVID-19, as well as trust in scientific and public health expertise in general. 

Recent Select Publications 

• Malloy, S., Osborne, M., Lokmanoglu, A., Nisbet, E. C., & Tien, J. (in press). Misinformation on All Fronts: The Interconnected Online Ecosystem. In Eds. A. Fairchild, M. Moser, R. Bayer, C. Healton, & G. Benjamin’s Backlash: The War on Public Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Allaham, M., Lokmanoglu, A.D., Hart, P.S., Nisbet, E.C. (2025). Enhancing LLMs for Governance with Human Oversight: Evaluating and Aligning LLMs on Expert Classification of Climate Misinformation for Detecting False or Misleading Claims about Climate Change. Proceedings of the 2^nd AAAIGOV Workshop at the 39^th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
• Dal, A. & Nisbet, E.C. (2025). Global Perspectives on Science, Polarization, and Populism. International Journal of Public Opinion Research. 37(1)
• Lokmanoglu, A. D., Nisbet, E.C., Osborne, M. T., Tien, J., Malloy, S., Cueva Chacón, L., Villa Turek, E., & Abhari, R. (2023). Social Media Sentiment about COVID-19 Vaccination Predicts Vaccine Acceptance among Peruvian Social Media Users the Next Day. Vaccines, 11(4)
• Padamsee, T., J., Bond, R.M., Dixon, G.N., Hovick, S.R., Na, K., Nisbet, E.C., Wegener, D.T., Garrett, K. (2022). Changes in COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among Black and White Americans. JAMA Network Open 5(1

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