Int J Biometeorol (2014) 58:565–577 DOI 10.1007/s00484-014-0821-9

PHENOLOGY – MILWAUKEE 2012

The how and why of societal publications for citizen science projects and scientists Arnold J. H. van Vliet & Wichertje A. Bron & Sara Mulder

Received: 14 May 2013 / Revised: 12 March 2014 / Accepted: 12 March 2014 / Published online: 5 April 2014 # ISB 2014

Abstract In the scientific community, the importance of communication to society is often underestimated. Scientists and scientific organisations often lack the skills to organise such communication effectively. The Dutch citizen science phenology network Nature’s Calendar has been successful in communicating to the general public via numerous newspaper articles, television appearances, presentations, websites and social media. We refer to these publications as societal publications. Due to active communication to mass media, we frequently reach millions of people. This communication helped us to involve thousands of volunteers in recording the timing of phenological events like the start of flowering, leaf unfolding and bird migration, but also several healthrelated events like hay fever symptoms and tick bites. In this paper, we analyse and present our experiences with the Nature’s Calendar project regarding societal publications. Based on this analysis, we explain the importance of societal publications for citizen science projects and scientists in general, and we show how scientists can increase the newsworthiness of scientific information and what factors and activities can increase the chances of media paying attention to this news. We show that societal publications help phenological networks by facilitating the recruitment, retention and instruction of observers. Furthermore, they stimulate the generation of new ideas and partners that lead to an increase in knowledge, awareness and behavioural change of the general public or specific stakeholders. They make projects, and scientists involved, better known to the public and increase their A. J. H. van Vliet : W. A. Bron Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University, PO Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands A. J. H. van Vliet (*) : W. A. Bron : S. Mulder Foundation for Sustainable Development, PO Box 570, 6700 AN Wageningen, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

credibility and authority. Societal publications can catalyse the production of new publications, thereby enforcing the previous mentioned points. Keywords Societal publications . Citizen science . Phenology . Media attention

Introduction Phenology networks are able to show that nature directly and strongly responds to changes in weather and climate. Phenological changes have become the main indicators of ecological impacts due to climate change (Menzel et al. 2006; Peñuelas et al. 2013). In February 2001, we started the Dutch phenology network Nature’s Calendar. The main objectives of Nature’s Calendar are to (1) monitor climate induced changes in the timing of yearly recurring life cycle events, (2) determine ecological and socio-economic impacts of phenological changes (3) increase public awareness on these changes and their impacts (4) develop tools and methodologies that allow society adapting to the changes and (5) implement these tools and methodologies. Just like many phenological networks, Nature’s Calendar is a citizen science network, involving the general public in monitoring the timing of life cycle events (e.g. first flowering of plants and first appearance of butterflies). Right from the start, we focused on active communication of our results to the general public via the media. One of our partners is the national radio programme ‘Vroege Vogels’ (early birds), weekly listened by almost half a million people. After the launch of Nature’s Calendar, we got a lot of media attention. ‘Climate change is visible in every garden according to biologists’ headed several Dutch newspapers. Within a week, potentially, 2.6 million people could read a story on the timing of life cycle events as indicator of climate change in their newspaper. Over 2,000 volunteers registered within the

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first 2 weeks to actively participate in scientific research by participating in the phenological monitoring programme while doing the things they like—watching nature. The publicity we got was surprising, overwhelming and difficult to deal with. We did not expect such an amount of media attention and so many volunteers to participate so quickly. We were not prepared for it and certainly not trained to actively communicate to society via the media. In the past 12 years, we heard similar experiences not only from many other phenology networks (e.g. UK, Sweden, France, USA) but also from other citizen science networks. In most cases, the home institutions of these networks, mainly universities and research institutes, were taken by surprise as well. They often saw the public attention as nice and maybe even useful as it attracted new volunteers and it resulted in positive publicity for the organisation, but the real value of the outreach was hardly recognised. Consequently, many opportunities for realising an even larger outreach and their related benefits were often missed by these citizen science networks. A low focus on communication to and with society is a commonplace for scientists. Their communication is largely focused on producing publications in peer reviewed scientific journals. The more scientific articles a scientist publishes and the higher the impact factor of the journals he or she publishes in, the better for the scientific career and the higher the amount of funding one can get. Consequently, scientific publications are carefully scored and continuously analysed. Compared to scientific publications, societal publications do not get a high priority. With societal publications, we mean a whole diversity of publication types including newspaper articles, television appearances, presentations for non-academic audiences, educational projects for schools, exhibitions, websites and social media. Neresini and Bucchi (2011) showed that most research institutes in Europe lack a culture of public engagement. The Royal Society (2006) showed that most scientists are not actively involved in communication to the public. She interviewed 1,485 research scientists in higher education institutes and demonstrated that during the 12 months before filling in the questionnaire, 77 % had never been interviewed by a newspaper journalist, 88 % had not been interviewed on radio, 80 % had not taken part in a public dialogue/debate and 75 % had not written for the non-specialised public. Bentley and Kyvik (2011) showed that 90 % of over 8,300 academic staff in 13 countries had at least one scientific publication during a 3-year period (2005–2007) while only one third published a popular article. Furthermore, they showed that half of the popular articles were published by only 3 % of the entire academic staff, with the top 1 % producing 31 % of all popular articles. Interest of scientists in societal publications remains low as the benefits are unclear (Willems 2003; Dunwoody and Ryan 1985). Unlike scientific publications, societal publications are hardly systematically registered and scored (Neresini and

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Bucchi 2011; Bentley and Kyvik 2011). Standardised methods to recognise and quantify the value of societal publications are lacking. Consequently, no ranking is possible and it is difficult to measure their impact. The existing metrics for quantifying impact of peer-reviewed publications are contentious and meaningless for measuring societal impact. In addition, scientists tend to consider societal publications as ‘scary’ and inferior. This may be partly caused by the lack of experience and expertise on generating societal publications. The Royal Society (2006)) showed that 73 % of the respondents never had training in communicating science to the nonspecialised public. Furthermore, societal publications cost a considerable amount of time at the cost of research activities like scientific publishing (Royal Society 2006; Poliakoff and Webb 2007; Bentley and Kyvik 2011). As only relatively few scientists generate societal publications, there is still a large potential to increase the outreach of scientists to society. The question, however, is how to convince scientists and their home institutions to put more effort in generating societal publications. We believe that a better quantification of the value of societal publications for the scientists and for society is crucial. Right from the start of Nature’s Calendar, we recognised the importance of actively communicating to society via a whole range of societal publications because they helped us reaching our objectives. Because of its importance, we gradually but significantly professionalised our outreach to society in the past 12 years. Our efforts resulted in over thousand newspaper articles and attention of hundreds of radio and television programmes for our work. We also launched several other citizen science programmes to further expand our societal visibility. Although we recognise the benefits of societal publications, we see that citizen science networks and the scientific community at large have difficulties in valuing its importance. In this paper, we, therefore, present and analyse our experiences with a number of citizen science projects regarding societal publications. Our main objective is to analyse and explain the importance of societal publications for citizen science projects and scientists in general and to identify the factors that increase the chance of a subject being picked up by journalists. We want to give other scientists the opportunity to use the lessons we learned regarding using societal publications for their own outreach and media engagement activities, particularly those scientists involved in citizen science network development.

Citizen science projects analysed We based our analysis of the importance of societal publications for citizen science projects mainly on our experiences in setting up and managing several ecological citizen science projects. The first project we started was the Nature’s Calendar

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project. Out of this project, we developed three other networks: ‘Allergieradar’ (Allergy radar), ‘Splashteller’ and the ‘Tekenradar’ (Tick radar). Below, each project is briefly described. In discussions with the numerous partners involved in these citizen science projects, we determined how societal publications helped in realising the objectives of these projects. We grouped the different reasons for importance into five main categories (see Fig. 1). Nature’s Calendar Nature’s Calendar (www.natuurkalender.nl) started in 2001 and is a cooperation with many organisations. Nature’s Calendar currently has about 8,500 volunteers who observe and record the timing of phenological events (of plants, birds, butterflies, dragonflies, wasps, amphibians, mammals and reptiles) in their own streets, gardens and nature nearby. Also, schoolchildren of almost 30 primary and secondary schools are involved in the network in the context of the GLOBE programme (www.globe.gov). In 2006, we sent a questionnaire to all 5,834 registered observers to get a better understanding of who participated and how participation impacts them. Of the questionnaires, 1,823 (31 %) were returned. Allergieradar In May 2009, we started the website Allergieradar.nl (Allergy Radar) together with Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and triptic (office for online communication). Allergieradar aims to increase our understanding of when

Fig. 1 An overview of the objectives of ecological citizen science projects and the way in which societal publications contribute in reaching the objectives

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and where which hay fever patients experience hay fever symptoms. Hay fever patients are asked to register the degree of their nose, eye and lung symptoms on a daily basis. We need this information to improve the hay fever forecasts. The symptom scores are also directly communicated via the website to inform patients on the current hay fever situation. Based on past pollen counts, we also created an online Pollen planner that produces a daily updated long-term forecast of the start and duration of the pollen season of eight hay fever plants. Currently, over 3,300 people participate. Splashteller In May 2011, we launched Splashteller.nl (Splatter Counter). After a car drive, people were asked to count the number of insects they ‘caught’ on their licence plate. The number of insects gave insight in the variation in insect density in time and space in The Netherlands. Over 600 people participated. Tekenradar In March 2012, Wageningen University started the website Tekenradar.nl (Tick Radar) together with the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). The site gives a 10-day forecast of the tick activity everywhere in The Netherlands. Furthermore, people are asked to report tick bites and erythema migrans cases (red rush, first sign of Lyme disease). People can also send the ticks that bit them to the RIVM for analysis on the Lyme disease causing Borrelia bacteria. In this way, they participate in research on tick bites and Lyme disease.

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Production and tracking of societal publications During the setup and management of our citizen science projects, we produced a wide variety of societal publications. All projects had their own website that allowed people to enter their observations (e.g. first flower, first bird, hay fever symptoms, tick bite) and to visualise all observations. Furthermore, the websites gave information on the background and objectives of the project, observation instructions, project news and partners involved. Societal publications with the largest outreach were publications via mass media (newspapers, television, radio, websites, magazines). We got their attention via numerous ways including direct cooperation (Vroege Vogels radio programme), press releases, other societal and scientific publications or direct contact (both on their and our initiative). Most project news was also communicated via social media, mainly Twitter. Other societal publications were digital/paper newsletters, magazines, brochures, presentations, fairs, conferences, Youtube videos, books/reports aimed at a general or professional public and educational programmes (including educational material and training workshops). In spring 2008, we intensified, standardised and professionalised our outreach with the launch of the nature news website Natuurbericht.nl where biologists of over 15 nature organisations (the editorial board) published at least two nature reports per day on topical developments in Dutch nature. All nature reports are reviewed by an editor in chief who has a background in marketing and communication and who advised the biologists in improving the newsworthiness of the reports. Natuurbericht.nl can be seen as a science blog (Colson 2011) that aims to bring nature into the news domain. The vision of Natuurbericht.nl was and is that people are more interested in and connected to nature and are more motivated to contribute to nature monitoring, management and protection if they know more about it and if they are more frequently informed about developments in nature. To get the news in the media, we developed a media module in the content management system of Natuurbericht.nl. This module allowed us to easily and quickly distribute newsworthy nature reports to a large number of journalists of national and regional media who indicated that they are interested in these reports. The content management system also had a digital newsletter tool that sent daily or weekly newsletters to more than 6,000 people. It also sent nature reports directly to Twitter where more than 5,000 people followed our news. In addition, many other organisations showed our news via RSS on their websites where people could read it and click on the link to Natuurbericht.nl. In October 2009, we organised a 1-day workshop for which we invited the editorial board of Natuurbericht.nl and Dutch journalists from national television and radio programmes, newspapers and news agencies. The main objective was to get a better understanding between biologists and journalists.

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Since journalists and biologists work in very different ways, we believed that both communities could benefit more from each other if they better understand each other’s way of working. To determine the impact of media attention on the number of new observers, we looked at the monthly numbers of new observers that registered to the citizen science programmes in relation to the monthly outreach realised by media. Since the start of Nature’s Calendar, we registered the newspaper articles and television and radio programmes that paid attention to our projects and results. For every newspaper, we assessed the circulation as well as the total amount of people that potentially read a copy of the newspaper. For television programmes, we registered the total amount of viewers as determined by the Stichting Kijkonderzoek (official television audience ratings in the Netherlands). It was more difficult to determine the amount of people that we potentially reached via radio programmes because it was difficult to identify all the radio programmes as quite often news bulletins on numerous radio stations took over our news. Furthermore, information on the numbers of listeners to every station or radio programme was not available. Based on the experience of the numerous interviews we gave to journalists, on the discussions we had with journalists at the Natuurbericht workshop and on the characteristics of the stories that were (not) picked up by media, we created a list of factors that increase the chance of media attention for a citizen science network, specific observations or specific analyses.

Importance of societal publications Recruitment, retention and instruction of observers Recruitment Citizen science projects require participation of interested citizens that are willing to actively contribute. Before people can decide whether they want to participate, they need to know that the project exists and that they can participate. This means that scientists have to find a communication channel via which they can show the following: & & & & &

That the project is interesting Who can participate What is expected from participants (what to do, when, where and how frequent) That participation is not too difficult What the benefits of participation are for the participants themselves, for society and for the research

The most effective way to inform large numbers of people is via mass media. Figure 2 shows the number of people

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Fig. 2 The yearly number of people reached in The Netherlands via newspapers and television by the citizen science projects in the period 2001–2011

reached in The Netherlands via newspaper and television by our citizen science projects in the period 2001 till 2011. The numbers include double counting but give an illustration of the enormous outreach achieved. The large amount of media attention resulted in many new observers for the Nature’s Calendar network. This is illustrated by Fig. 3 that shows the monthly numbers of people potentially reached via newspapers and the recruitment of new observers for the period February 2005 till August 2012. We can link almost every peak in the number of new observers to peaks in the number of people reached via newspapers. Media attention was often related to extreme weather events and the direct response of plants and animals to these events. Also, the launch of new (sub-) projects resulted in a lot of media attention. Furthermore, we experienced that if we made a link with health-related issues, many journalists were interested (e.g. ticks, hay fever, wasps).

participate and how they should make and submit their observations. The project website gives most opportunities for instruction as there is plenty of room for placing text and pictures and people can decide themselves when to read the information. Giving presentations or being present at fairs are also nice ways to instruct people as the personal contact allows discussion and the answering of questions that people might have. These activities are, however, much more time consuming. Every now and then, we get the possibility to tell via mass media what we expect observers to do in detail. Especially, radio programmes or longer newspaper or magazine articles are suitable for including instructions. Although we are convinced of the important role of societal publications in the instruction of participants, we have not quantified its real impact.

Retention of participants

Societal publications can trigger people to ask questions to or to discuss a topic with scientists. These questions and discussions are very valuable in getting a better understanding of the need for knowledge, information, tools and methodologies. Journalists are most specialised in asking questions. Their questions on why phenological changes are important for society (the ‘so what?’ question) triggered us to think about the applications of phenological information. These questions stimulated us to focus on societal applications like health issues, agriculture, gardening and (nature) recreation. Journalists also play a role in connecting scientists with other organisations and potential partners as journalists often want to include information from more than one source. If we, for example, communicate that spring is very early, journalists will ask for the consequences. If we tell that fruit growers might be affected by a higher risk of frost damage, journalists often directly approach the fruit growers and ask for their

From discussions we had with our observers and teachers involved in the educational programme GLOBE, we learnt that it is very motivating if they read about the Natuurkalender project and its results in media. It justifies and confirms that they are contributing to a good cause and that they have an impact. Participants also like to tell to their friends, family and colleagues that they participate in a scientific programme that is in the news, especially when they also heard about it. We, however, are not able to quantify the exact role of societal publications in keeping observers involved and active. Instruction to participants We experienced that societal publications play an important role in the instruction of the observers on how they can

Generation of new ideas and partners

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Fig. 3 Variation in monthly numbers of new observers and the number of people reached via newspapers. (A) a very warm autumn within the beginning of November, large numbers of butterflies and dragonflies still flying and many trees still had green leaves. (B) Due to a ‘cold’ winter, spring started relatively late compared to previous years. Within a week time over 30 newspapers paid attention to the late start of spring. (C) Many newspaper articles and many new observers from January to May 2007 due to attention for the warmest period ever recorded with in a row the warmest autumn, warmest winter and warmest spring. Spring events never started that early. In March, an agricultural and a fruit tree module was launched. Media attention to the very early wasps and to a wasp prediction caused the largest increase in the number of new observers that period. In April 2007, again, large numbers of people registered after we presented the first results of our monitoring of tick bites and the number of ticks that were infected with the Lyme disease causing Borrelia bacteria that we started in July 2006. On 20 April 2007, all major news programmes on national television and partly also regional television paid attention to the very early start of spring. The item was covered by over 50 television programmes (including repetitions) reaching at least 11 million people (including double counting). The number of newspaper articles was 37, reaching another 5 million people. At the end of the month, we received a lot of attention due to the record dry conditions. In May 2007, we launched, together with the Dutch Butterfly Conservation

and the Institute for Nature Education and Sustainability (IVN), a project whereby we installed 100 so-called nectar pubs all over the country. At these nectar pubs, people were asked to count butterflies and to record the flowering of several nectar producing plants. (D) Many new observers due to our presence on several garden fairs. (E) Launch of Allergieradar.nl resulting in 1090 new observers in 2 months. (F) Over 50 newspaper articles paid attention to the late start of spring due to the cold winter, to hay fever and to our reports on the large number of ticks that were infected with the Borrelia bacteria in 2009. (G) In the period February to May 2011, we realised 284 newspaper articles, the largest amount in such a short period of time. The reason was the very early start of the growing season in relation to hay fever, new information on the lengthening of the growing season, ticks, the first prediction of oak processionary caterpillar appearance, the appearance of wasps, extreme high concentrations of pollen due to extreme dry conditions and the impact of the drought on plants and animals, and last but not least the launch of the Splashteller programme. (H) January 2012 had an extremely early start of early spring. Already in the first week of January, the daffodils were flowering (2 months earlier than normal). (I) In March 2012, we had media coverage on the appearance of oak processionary caterpillar and on the lengthening of the pollen season. (J) The largest peak of new observers in May, June and July 2012 due to the launch of Tekenradar.nl where we asked people to report tick bites

opinion. This helped us in quickly identifying interesting partners from society and to establish contact. We experienced that people and organisations were often willing to cooperate or exchange knowledge when they had received publicity shortly before due to our communication and when they found out that we have data and knowledge that are interesting to them. Societal publications can also help to inform colleagues, (potential) partners, (potential) funding organisations and governmental organisations about our work, our results and our tools and methodologies. It might trigger them to approach

scientists to collaborate. In response to our societal publications about changes in the timing of the start of flowering and pollen release, for example, we were contacted by the Leiden University Medical Center that counts pollen and produces hay fever forecasts, a pharmaceutical company and an allergy diagnostics company. The contacts resulted in partnerships, funding and improved communication abilities to specific target groups. Similar processes happened with every project that we initiated. Furthermore, the partners made us much more aware of the background knowledge, interests, needs and roles of the different stakeholders and the general public.

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Without societal publications, we would have been much less effective in setting up holistic (research) projects with a high societal relevance and impact. Increase knowledge, awareness and behavioural change A famous statement of the Sengalese environmentalist Baba Dioum in his speech to the general assembly of the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 1968 was, “In the end, we conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught” (Rodes and Odell 1997). Therefore, to get people into action to, for example, protect biodiversity or to emit less greenhouse gases, scientists have to make sure that people get the relevant information at the right time in a way they understand. Scientific publications alone will not do the job to inform society. They should be supported by societal publications. One of the objectives of Nature’s Calendar was to increase public awareness of climate change. We did this via numerous societal publications in which we showed how plants and animals changed the timing of life cycle events in response to changes in weather and climate (extremes). The contribution of these societal publications to increasing awareness was demonstrated by the results of our questionnaire that we sent to our Nature’s Calendar observers in 2006. To the question “Has Nature’s Calendar made you more aware of climate change and its impacts on your direct surroundings?”, 29 % of the 1822 participants that answered this question said yes. Eleven percent said no, 53 % indicated that they were already aware and 7 % did not know or had no opinion. To the follow-up question “Did you, due to the changed awareness, did things or not?”, 32 % said yes, 41 % said no and 27 % said that they did not know or did not have an opinion. Examples mentioned were the following: leaving the car at home and go walking; take the bike or travel by public transport; buying a more fuel efficient car; choosing for green energy and changing their gardening practices in order to make gardens more hospitable to insects, birds, hedgehogs etc. The longer participants were observer, the more they were aware of climate change and the more they changed their behaviour. Furthermore, by participating in monitoring schemes, people learn more about their environment. Cosquer et al. (2012) found increased attentiveness to and knowledge of butterflies by observers of the French Garden Butterflies Watch. Also, the awareness of the ecological functioning of the immediate environment increased. According to Hobbs and White (2012) learning can for some people be a good reason to get involved in a scientific monitoring programme and certainly is a benefit of participation. One of the aims of our phenology network is to help society to adapt to phenological changes. Having a better understanding of how climate change alters the timing of life

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cycle events or how it affects society is not enough to solve the problems. Various stakeholders in society have to take action. People have to be aware of the problems they face and of the fact that they can or should adapt or change their behaviour to prevent problems to take place or to reduce the impact. They need to know what they have to do when and where in order to prevent problems. To properly develop methodologies and techniques that people can use and to advise people on what to do when and where, it is important to know where in the sequence of behavioural activities problems occur or improvements can be realised. To achieve this understanding, it is important to communicate directly with the stakeholders. Based on the experiences of the stakeholders, scientists can determine and execute the monitoring and analyses required and develop and implement methodologies, techniques and products that stakeholders can use to adapt their behaviour. According to McKinley et al. (2012) “the present day science model, where user involvement is minimal or absent, often produces knowledge that cannot be readily used or easily accessed or does not adequately address the needs of land managers, decision makers, and the public”. Societal publications can support the communication with and the involvement of stakeholders. We experience this also with participants in our Allergieradar project. An increased awareness of hay fever patients on the plant development in their own surroundings and an increased knowledge on how to respond can help patients in reducing hay fever. People get hay fever symptoms when they are exposed to pollen. Pollen get in the air when trees and herbs start flowering. The start and duration of flowering is largely determined by temperature. Consequently, every year, trees start flowering on a different date. To reduce or even prevent hay fever symptoms, hay fever patients should start taking their medication a few weeks before the start of the pollen season. The problem is, however, that many patients do not know which pollen cause their problems, when these pollen are expected in the air and what preventive measures they can take. Societal publications with information on the expected start of a season and the societal consequences help in informing millions of patients, but also family doctors, pharmacies and medical specialists. Via mass media, the majority of society can be reached while on a smaller scale, via websites and mobile applications, a smaller amount of, often very interested, people can be informed directly. Whether the information provided via societal publications really increased the knowledge of the various stakeholders and whether it leads to behavioural change is not guaranteed automatically as many other social and personal factors play a role. More social science research projects are needed to further quantify these changes. Despite the uncertainty, it is likely to assume that without these societal publications, less people will get into action.

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Increase credibility and authority Telling people what they could or should do based on research findings is no guarantee that people will really take action in the way scientists suggest. The willingness to respond partly depends on whether people know and trust the sender of the information. The more societal publications scientists generate, the more likely it is that people start to recognise and ‘to know’ the scientists. The increased exposure via media will stimulate the “third-person effect” or the “influence of presumed influence”. These theories suggest that people adjust their own attitude and behaviour because they perceive media as influential and think that it influences others. According to Davison (1983), many of the effects of media on society take place because people perceive media as influential. Several studies demonstrated this impact (e.g. Gunther and Storey 2003), although others (e.g. Xu and Gonzenbach 2008) show that it is difficult to quantify the impact of a change in perception on behaviour. We experience that people like it when they have seen you on television or read about your research in their newspaper. We also very often hear that colleagues, friends and family were told by their friends and family that they have seen us in the media. It is an indication that people positively value the communication and that they want to share their experience. Many scientists consider an enhanced personal reputation among peers as an important outcome of media contacts (Peters et al. 2008b). An increase in reputation contributes to an increase in creditability and authority.

Generate new societal publications Figure 1 shows that societal publications positively influence the four benefits of societal publications mentioned before. We frequently experienced that societal publications can generate a snowball effect resulting in many other societal publications. If, for example, a national newspaper pays attention to a very early flowering of Wood anemone (Anemone nemerosa) due to very high temperatures in the preceding weeks, other journalists are triggered to also bring the story. It is likely that until then, other journalists did not know of the existence of the phenology network or project or did not know the scientists that coordinate the network. They can just copy the story but quite often, different journalists take different angles as they don’t want to do the same as their colleagues and because they work for a different type of media (radio, television, website), they have a different target audience or they are interested in subjects related to the event that is described. A magazine targeting at fruit growers might ask for the risk of frost damage to crops and other media might want to address the consequences of early flowering of Birch (Betula) for hay fever patients. In addition, media attention

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can result in other types of societal publications like requests to give presentations, excursions or to organise workshops. As it is easy to search through past news articles in newspapers and certainly on the internet, it is likely that you will be identified and approached as a potential expert by other journalists if the same or a related topic is actual again. A nice thing about phenology is that since it is about the timing of yearly recurring events in nature, topics yearly return. As a result, societal publications can generate new publications days, weeks, months or even years after another societal publication. Furthermore, when journalists have identified a scientist as a source of interesting stories, it is likely that he or she will approach the same scientist when the same or a similar topic pops up again. Recommendations to increase media attention Earlier, we showed that the Nature’s Calendar network generated a lot of media attention. The hundreds of interviews we had with journalists gave us a good understanding of the information that journalists are looking for. Based on the frequent communication we had with journalists, we generated a list of factors or actions that can increase the chances of media attention for citizen science projects, specific observations or specific analyses. In several points, we take phenological information as an example but often, phenology can easily be replaced by another topic: 1. The most important factor is that you should actively inform journalists about your knowledge or findings by sending out press releases or simply emailing or phoning journalists. Most organisations have press officers that have a list of journalists that are potentially interested. 2. Gather the contact information of journalists that interviewed you. It is likely that they will be interested in related new information in the future. Journalists normally appreciate it when you actively approach them with news. 3. Timing of communication is crucial. Send out information preferably when it is relevant and the events are happening or will happen soon. Providing information on a very early flowering of a plant after the event took place normally does not generate attention. 4. Be prepared for the standard news opportunities like the occurrence of weather extremes or the end of the month, season or year. At these moments, meteorologists often produce and communicate weather statistics so that a clear link between weather conditions and the timing of life cycle events can be made. Often, you can already prepare your story days before the end of the month, season or year is reached. 5. Be available, and reserve time for talking to media and for reviewing the articles they write. Journalists often

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6.

7. 8.

9.

have to meet strict deadlines. If they ask you to phone back, do it as quickly as possible as they might contact another person or choose a different subject otherwise. Build a relation with journalists so they more easily approach you next time. Even if you can’t help them yourself, try to bring them into contact with colleagues or other experts that potentially can answer their questions. Have a location where the phenological events can be seen. The closer the location is to the journalists’ offices, the better it is. Offer a wide variety of topics to enlarge the number of media/journalists that are potentially interested. If you can show the consequences of a very warm spring, for example, not only for plants, but also for birds, amphibians, butterflies and mammals, your story will interest a bigger public. It is even better if you can put the observations in the context of big environmental issues like climate change and relate it to various societal sectors like agriculture, health, recreation or gardening (see also Table 1). Have partner organisations, specialists, stakeholders or people that benefit or are affected by the change in

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timing of the phenological event stand by. It helps when the stakeholders have a high authority/credibility. Be aware that the more organisations or people are involved, the more difficult it will be to have them all mentioned in newspaper articles, radio programmes or television programmes. This might be annoying for the persons involved or the organisations they work for. Take caution in the partners that you work with and be aware of their stakes and how these stakes might conflict with your interests. 10. As phenological networks are often citizen science networks, journalists regularly ask whether they can contact one or more observers for an interview. Make sure that you have a number of observers that are willing and able to clearly explain their participation to journalists. 11. Make the real news easy to catch. Start with the most important message you want to give. Formulate the real news straight and clear in the lead, preferably well founded with numerical data. This is very important in drawing attention of both journalists and the general public. Before making a news item, ask yourself the question: what is the news/message I want to spread?

Table 1 Three examples of how the news worthiness of phenological events can be increased by adding different layers of information Information layer

19 October 2006

2 August 2007

29 December 2013

Describe the (phenological) event.

The leaves of oak and beech start to colour their leaves and the grass is still growing….

Hazel starts to flower.

Indicate the geographical area for which the information is relevant. Compare the timing of the event with a reference situation. Explain the cause of the difference in timing with the reference situation. You can also tell that this cause is unknown and that you try to better understand the observed timing. Explain the socio-economic or environmental/ecological relevance of the change. Quantify the financial consequences of the event or the change in timing.

In every part of the country

Fruits (wild and cultivated) are ripening, summer flowers are flowering and wasps start causing problems. In every part of the country

3 weeks later than normal

Up to 40 days earlier than the average of 50 years ago

More than 1 month earlier than normal

Due to the absence of frost

Due to the record high temperatures in preceding winter and spring

Due to the high temperatures in October and December

Explain how stakeholders can or should respond to the changes in timing. Provide a forecast of what might happen in the coming days or months.

In the south and middle of the country

Municipalities have to make a new Fruit growers have to hire personnel One million hay fever patients schedule of when to remove the two to three weeks earlier than will experience significant leaves from the streets and have expected. The lack of personnel nose and eye problems and to schedule an extra mowing to pick the fruits will cause a reduced health care cost will be over 5 round which will cost an average harvest of 10 %. People are confronted million euros. municipality 100,000 Euro. with annoying wasps significantly earlier than normal and food availability for birds might become a problem during winter. Gardeners have to delay the timing Fruit growers should develop scenarios Patients are advised to keep of pruning the trees and delay for what to do when these extreme windows closed and take hay the start of events take place. fever medication. Only around 15 November trees Annoyance caused by wasps ends Hazel pollen season lasts till 14 like oak and beech will have in the 3rd week of August. April. 100 % coloured leaves.

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12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

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Why do I ask attention for it now? Use this information for the lead. Keep it simple: formulate your message as telling it your mother. Use words and sentences that everyone easily understands. For example, try to avoid words like phenology and ecosystems, or acronyms, as not everybody understands what they mean. Don’t give too many details. Keep it as concise as possible, even if you lose nuance. Most media do not care about nuance. If you do not remove nuance yourself, somebody else might do it with you losing control. Especially, television news requires nice visual material (the bigger the animals, the better). Also, other media love visual material. Try to make it accessible for journalists and let them know where to find it. Designate a contact person for the media on forehand. Mention this person including contact details in your press release. Record and analyse previous (non)successful news events and try to determine the reasons for the (lack of) success. Show the managers within your organisation an overview of the societal publications you generated. Most often, they have not seen or recognised your publications.

At the Natuurbericht workshop, with journalists and biologists, we gathered interesting quotes from Dutch journalists about their experiences with and opinions on the news generating process. Being aware of these points can help scientists to improve their interaction with journalists and to better understand the reasons for why their story is picked up or not. 1. Many people are interested in nature. Good stories on nature have a good chance of being picked up which is also interesting for journalists themselves. 2. News on natural events often is used for filling in the gaps. The success of a story is depending on the strength of the story and just luck. 3. Journalism is not an exact science. It remains difficult to predict whether stories will be picked up and by whom and when. Even for journalists it is a ‘fingerspitzengefühl’. A very interesting and good story can be neglected if it is outcompeted by other stories from elsewhere in the world. 4. For journalists, it is also unknown why colleagues sometimes use other media as inspiration and sometimes as an excuse for not picking up a certain story. 5. Not only the personal interest of the journalist plays an important role but also the mood of the editor in chief. 6. Journalists work under great time pressure. They need to deliver as much as possible in the time they have, often, at the expense of the quality.

7. If you really want your message to be picked up by the media, you should call a journalist you know. Direct contact and a personal entrance are the best ways to get attention. You then can also discuss whether the news can be placed that day or whether it is better to wait one or a few days. The journalists can also determine who is the best editor in chief for your subject. 8. Every editorial office has its own day planning which determines the right time to approach a journalist. Furthermore, a journalist has to choose the right moment to approach the editor in chief. Some journalists are busy in the morning with finding topical subjects and have more time at the end of the day for the long-term planning. 9. Journalists are opportunistic; they largely chose subjects based on what is available. 10. Because of their time pressure, journalists often seem lazy. They hardly investigate their subjects, but copy each other instead. 11. If your news has not been picked up by media, you can try it again the other day as it might not be considered as not interesting but just outcompeted by other news of that day. 12. Journalists can be tempted to write about your work if they are invited to join interesting spectacular events you organise. 13. Have pictures available free of charge. 14. Press agencies have the ability to quickly spread the news as their news stories are automatically picked up by media that have a subscription. 15. Even when a story is not picked up by the media, many journalists have seen it and are informed about it.

Discussion and conclusion In this paper, we discussed our experiences with societal publications and showed that they are important for (citizen) science projects. Societal publications help with the recruitment, retention and instruction of observers. They stimulate the generation of new ideas and attract new partners that might lead to an increase in knowledge and awareness and to behavioural change of the general public or specific stakeholders. Due to societal publications, the projects and scientists involved will become more well known by the public, and as a result, their credibility and authority increases. Next to the fact that scientists with relatively more peer-reviewed publications generate more societal publications (Jensen et al. 2008; Bentley and Kyvik 2011), we experience that societal publications themselves stimulate the production of (many) new societal publications. Furthermore, we showed that scientists can significantly influence the amount of media attention they get.

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Need to quantify benefits Despite the benefits of societal publications, the communication to society by scientific organisations remains minimal (Neresini and Bucchi 2011). According to Tsfati et al. (2011) scientists tend to invest more in connections with media if they believe that appearing in media helps them also from an academic perspective in the sense of being cited more often, attracting students and grants easier and getting more esteem of colleagues. However, Jensen et al. (2008) showed that popularisation activities are not bad for the scientists’ careers but that they are not very good either. What, to our opinion, is lacking is the quantification of the benefits. Although we demonstrated the benefits of societal publications, it was not an easy task to do. A better quantification of the benefits will make it possible to make scientists, scientific organisations and funding organisations more aware of the value of societal publications. It also allows comparisons between scientists, groups, and organizations and comparisons between months or years. It was, for example, only after we created graphs like Fig. 2 that the management within our organisation realised the impact and value of our societal publications. If scientists and their managers are more aware of the impact, it will be more likely that they will spend time and money on producing societal publication and on monitoring its impact. A better quantification of the benefits and impacts of societal publications requires the close involvement of social scientists like communication scientists, sociologists and psychologists. With their tools and methodologies they can, for example, help to quantify the impact of various publications on knowledge levels, awareness and on behavioural change. Need for communication training Researchers who do communicate to a wider public greatly agree that the academic world would benefit from science communication training (Besley and Tanner 2011). We agree and believe that the scientific community should significantly intensify the training of scientists in producing societal publications. Scientists often find it difficult to communicate (Peters et al. 2008a). Around 70 % of the scientists indicate that they would be more willing to engage the non-specialist public in science and engineering if it was easier to organise such activities and if they would have had more training (Royal Society 2006). Scientists, for example, struggle with the ethical difficulties of keeping good scientific conduct and not harming scientific integrity with these publications (Meyer and Sandøe 2012). According to Peters et al. (2008a), scientific integrity is certainly an issue in a time that PR-related communication goals are becoming more important relative to quality-related goals. They argue that scientific sources have to find ways to combine their

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strategic visibility goals with quality criteria regarding message content as a matter of respect for public discourse and media audience. They state that this should be a priority in the development of the research organizations’ communication strategies and in the development of guidelines and curricula for media training workshops for scientists. Meyer and Sandøe (2012) propose ways for scientists to deal with ethical public relations issues, guided by a norm of openness. Although training of scientists is needed, we do not suggest the development and implementation of timeconsuming training programmes. It would already be effective if the basics of communication practices are taught at universities during MSc and PhD courses. Increasing news worthiness In this paper, we showed that a large number of factors can help in attracting media attention. Many of them are very straightforward and relatively easy to implement. Table 1 gives three examples of how we increased the news worthiness of phenological events like flowering of trees or appearance of wasps by adding different ‘layers of information’ to the story around the (phenological) event. An important information layer is the geographical scope of the story. You should clearly communicate for which area the information is relevant so journalists can quickly determine whether the story is relevant for their audience. Even in a small country like the Netherlands, there can be a difference of 2 to 3 weeks in the start of flowering of, for example, hay fever plants between the southwest and the northeast of the country. This difference in timing will be much larger in larger countries and/or countries with more altitudinal differences so you have to inform the journalists about the geographical differences. The story becomes much more interesting if you can compare the timing of the event with a reference situation (last year, previous 10 years, the ‘normal’) so journalists and the public can put the information into perspective. Also, try to explain the cause of the difference in timing with the reference situation. It is our experience that it is no problem if the causes are unknown and that you formulate a number of hypotheses. The news worthiness significantly increases if you can explain the socio-economic or environmental/ecological relevance of the change. Also, natural events that people find interesting, beautiful, scary or dangerous increase the interest. The more you can quantify the financial consequences of the event or the changes in timing, the better it is. The story becomes even more interesting if you can explain how stakeholders can or should respond to the changes in timing and if you can provide a forecast of what might happen in the coming days or months. Later, a comparison with the original forecast can be made which often leads to new societal publications in which you explain what really happened and whether the

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forecasts and expected impacts where right or wrong and why. For most of these information layers, it is quite obvious that they increase the news worthiness of a story but we see that most scientists don’t think of them and can’t answer questions about these topics posed by journalists. If scientists are aware of these points and if they see that it is relatively easy to incorporate them in their day-to-day life as a scientist, they will automatically see more communication opportunities. This effect will be stronger when scientists are aware of the benefits of societal publications. Actively communicate with journalists A changed attitude towards societal publications or journalists can have a significant impact on the outreach via mass media. Tsfati et al. (2011), for instance, state that it is very important to cooperate with journalists and that scientists who issue press releases and are willing to give interviews and provide additional materials are almost the only ones mentioned in the media. In that sense, building a good relationship with media takes some time, but usually pays off. When scientists have a good relationship with journalists they get a better understanding of their working procedures, background knowledge, interests (personal and company) and objectives. Consequently, they significantly increase the chance of their research being picked up by media. We would not be surprised if most scientists have never considered the fact that journalists also are interested in having a good relationship with scientists and that journalists are in general very willing to write good and interesting stories. It is also in the interest of journalists that scientists are continuously willing to provide them with news. As the worlds of journalists and scientists generally greatly differ, for instance with respect to knowledge, language and timing/deadlines, it requires time, patience and effort to understand each other properly. Apart from being able to understand each other, we found out that informing the right journalists at the right time is crucial for getting information in the media. There are many newspapers, television and radio programmes, websites and magazines that are potentially interested in the subjects scientists work on. However, the publication rhythms of these media vary significantly and journalists often change position or subject of interest. It can be time consuming to keep track of knowing who to contact when with which subject. To partly solve this, we successfully professionalised our outreach by setting up our news website Natuurbericht.nl. Our good experience with the use of this science blog-like website in approaching the general public and media is not confirmed by others. Colson (2011), for instance, states that science journalists would not consider those blogs as a valuable source of information and that the creation of a science blog is mainly based on scientists’

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desires to bypass traditional media. For us, Natuurbericht.nl appeared a successful way of informing the media about our work. Journalists indicated to us that they want to be kept informed actively and they very frequently pick up our news stories. Especially our media tool in the Content Management System that directly informs journalists about newsworthy items is very useful in rapidly informing journalists. Journalists don’t mind if a message is first published on a website before they can publish about it. They realise that the number of people that potentially read the news on Natuurbericht.nl is only a fraction of the people that they can reach with their mass media. We realise that most researchers cannot develop such a media tool. Fortunately, many research organisations have a communication office. Those offices can help researchers in identifying and establishing contacts with journalists. The presence of these communication experts is no excuse to sit back and wait till they contact you. A proactive attitude is required as they cannot oversee all projects that are ongoing in detail and they have difficulties in identify the newsworthy elements at the right time. If scientists are trained in producing societal publications, they can probably cooperate more effectively with the communication persons in their own organisation. We experienced that the more experience we got in generating societal publications, the more focussed we became on the media opportunities and the more easily we cooperated with the communication experts within our organisation. Allow society to actively participate Communicating science to society is very rewarding and inspiring and is beneficial for the scientific process. We believe it is also the responsibility of scientists and scientific organisations to inform society about their results, data, methods, tools and their knowledge. Only if society is informed in an understandable way about what science has to offer, the actors within society can discuss, form opinions and make maximal use of what science has to offer. In the case of citizen science projects, active communication allows society to actively participate in the scientific process. Although we realise that generating societal publications requires training and that it costs time and resources, our research demonstrated that societal publications also have clear and substantial benefits for the scientific process. We hope that by sharing our experiences with societal publications more scientists are willing and interested to actively communicate to society, despite the challenges they will encounter. Acknowledgments We thank all our volunteers that participated in reporting their observations to the various citizen science programmes mentioned in this paper. Furthermore, we want to thank the numerous partner organisations involved.

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