The following article was written by Eva Obermüller and was published on <link http: science.orf.at>science.orf.at on 30.05.2018.

"Science" and "Nature" — in terms of scientific authority and public attention, these two long-established journals are hard to beat. Papers published there quite often make it onto front pages. The journals sometimes shape public discourse and political decisions. A particular role is played by their editorials. In these, either the editor themselves or an invited author writes about a topic that — from the journal's perspective — is especially current and relevant at that moment.

Both "Science" and "Nature" have accompanied their scientific papers with such introductory texts since their founding (1880 and 1869 respectively), in "Nature" usually anonymously, although typically written by the editor-in-chief. In "Science" the author is named, and guests are sometimes invited to contribute — in January 2017, for example, Barack Obama.

In terms of content, these pieces are less about objective facts than about assessments and opinions; the tone can sometimes be provocative or even controversial. As researchers around <link https: www.geog.cam.ac.uk people hulme>Mike Hulme from the British University of Cambridge write, these opinion pieces carry considerable influence, as they inform an elite readership about which scientific topics are currently of greatest importance for society. Yet editorials and their impact have received very little scrutiny until now.

"Climate change" with a quiet start

What can be gleaned from this has now been demonstrated by Hulme's team using the term "climate change" as an example — the analysis was published, incidentally, in a "Nature" journal. Nearly 500 editorials on the topic were identified between 1966 and 2016, 333 in "Nature" and 160 in "Science". That amounts to five to six per cent of all editorials in total.

In the first two decades of the analysis, "climate change" barely features as a topic, neither in "Science" nor in "Nature". When it does appear at all, the tendency is to warn against "eco-alarmism". Issues such as air pollution or energy security were rarely linked to climate. It was only in the late 1980s that "climate change" began to attract greater attention in both Europe and the United States. According to Hulme, this is also reflected in the editorials.

New perspectives

In 1988, two of the texts addressed the topic for the first time. It was only after 2000 that it became a genuine recurring theme, with sometimes as many as ten editorials per year and per journal centred on climate change. Attention rose and fell in connection with high-profile events, such as the publication of the respective <link https: de.wikipedia.org wiki intergovernmental_panel_on_climate_change>IPCC report or around <link http: sciencev2.orf.at stories index.html>"Climategate".

Change occurred not only in quantity but also in perspective. Initially the focus was more on scientific and technological questions, to which political and societal challenges were later added. Only more recently has there been a growing focus on how climate change should be communicated to the public.

Different cultures

Despite all the similarities in development, the researchers were also able to identify differences between the journals, each of which has its own distinct background. The American "Science" is the flagship publication of the US research society (<link https: www.aaas.org>AAAS) with over 130,000 subscribers. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C., with only one European branch office (Cambridge). "Nature" is headquartered in London, with offices of the "Nature Publishing Group" around the world. Over 55,000 subscribers receive the journal, which has been part of "Springer Nature" since 2015.

Looking at the period as a whole, "Nature" editorials more frequently addressed strategies, implementation and policy. In "Science", the focus was predominantly on challenges in technology and energy. Only more recently have the introductory texts of the US publication increasingly engaged with the public communication of climate change. The study's authors attribute this to the particular — and not only on the issue of climate, deeply divided — American public of today. Nowhere, they argue, is it so difficult to communicate the very existence of climate change. Scientists must compete with targeted disinformation campaigns.

Geographical "lenses"

"Nature", with its British-European background, faces less of this problem: here, the journal sees itself more in a position of opinion leadership on the topic and can therefore think aloud about concrete strategies and solutions. The different cultures within the journals — such as the presumed anonymity at "Nature" — also influence the "slant" of the editorials.

Political and cultural "lenses" determine how we see the world, explains <link https: www.nottingham.ac.uk sociology people brigitte.nerlich>Brigitte Nerlich from the University of Nottingham in an accompanying commentary. This is confirmed by the current analysis as well. How scientific findings are interpreted depends on historical and institutional background as well as geography. The editors' commentaries have an important role to play at the interface between research and the public, the study's authors note — but they rarely speak with one voice.

<link https: www.nature.com articles s41558-018-0174-1 external-link-new-window internal link in current>Here is the link to the study published in "Nature Climate Change" on 28.05.18.