PLOS Climate: Submit to our Focus Topic on Misinformation and Disinformation

PLOS Climate is calling for submissions for a new focus topic on Climate Misinformation and Disinformation.

The unprecedented spread of misinformation and disinformation is threatening democracies worldwide by undermining scientific progress, the integrity of elections, the state of public health, and collective action on the greatest challenge facing our planet: global climate change. Accordingly, we welcome a wide range of submissions that address (a) why people believe misinformation about climate change, (b) the main agents of climate misinformation and disinformation, their main strategies and tactics, and how climate misinformation spreads in society (both offline and online), (c) different types of misinformation regarding climate science, impacts, and/or mitigation and geoengineering measures and how they may differ; (d) what negative consequences climate misinformation has on individuals, communities, and policy-making, as well as (d) effective individual and system-level interventions that can mitigate or reduce the impact of climate misinformation. We welcome submissions from all subject areas and encourage interdisciplinarity. We are particularly interested in novel theoretical frameworks, rigorous experimental data, real-world field studies, computational approaches (including AI), network analysis, and/or systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Members of the editorial team supporting this project include:

• Marco Grasso (University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy)

• Sander van der Linden (University of Cambridge, UK)

• Pam McElwee (Rutgers University, USA)

Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

• Real-world field or case studies of misinformation in different countries (with policy relevance)

• Different topics that are subject to climate misinformation (e.g., climate science, impacts, policy, funding, geoengineering)

• Social media data and novel computational approaches 

• The role of artificial intelligence in climate misinformation

• Behavioural or other measures that go beyond self-reports

• Linking of self-reported survey with population-level data (e.g., via spatial, historical, administrative, economic, health, or other records)

• Formal theoretical models (including agent-based simulations)

• Interventions that can reduce or mitigate the impact of climate misinformation

• The main agents of the climate disinformation and misinformation galaxy and their strategies and tactics

• The role of the fossil fuel industry in climate misinformation

• Gender dynamics of misinformation

There is no deadline for submissions, as we intend to establish this as an ongoing focus topic within the journal. Accepted articles will be published and highlighted on a continuous basis to PLOS Climate’s broad and interdisciplinary readership on an ongoing basis through a variety of channels and forums.

We encourage submissions of original Research Articles through PLOS Climate‘s Editorial Manager portal. We also welcome proposals for submissions of Reviews, Opinions and Essays, which should be addressed to Executive Editor Dr Jamie Males.

All submissions will be subject to PLOS Climate’s standard editorial and peer review processes, and will be assessed by members of the journal’s editorial board.

Publication fees for Research Articles are automatically waived for corresponding authors whose primary affiliation is to an institution in a Group A or B Research4Life country, or whose institution has a partnership with PLOS. There are no publication fees for Reviews, Opinions or Essays.

Ready to submit your work to PLOS Climate? Follow our step-by-step guide to the submission process!