What the Papers Say: Trends in Sustainability

This paper presents an overview of the results of a longitudinal analysis of the coverage of sustainability-related concepts in 115 leading national newspapers worldwide between January 1990 and July 2008, covering approximately 20,500,000 articles in 340,000 newspaper issues in 39 countries. On a global level, sustainable development and corporate social responsibility seem to have reached the mainstream public arena, whereas the coverage of corporate citizenship and corporate sustainability remains marginal. The increase in sustainability related media coverage since 1990 largely seems to be of an incremental nature, rather than clearly associated with specific events. Only very few truly global events can be identified that triggered a substantial amount of media coverage globally. Furthermore, marked regional and national differences in the coverage of sustainability related concepts can be identified.

‘Papers from ‘A Symposium with Professor Roger Brownsword: Super-stewardship in the Context of Public Health’’

This special issue seeks to engage the term 'stewardship' and the practical and theoretical work around it, both of which are destined to remain items of unfinished business as governance struggles to keep up and connect with its fast moving technological and societal targets. While this special issue is testament to that observation, it also helps to foster much needed scholarly discussion and critique – and to ensure this field is not unwittingly formed and deployed by and as a legitimating support for governance, but rather opened up, elaborated and contested. The articles provide innovative insights and food for thought on the conception and legal-political practice and potential of stewardship and ‘super-stewardship’ in national, supranational and international settings.