Wi4impact #2 – The Potential of Digital Media in Knowledge Transfer

The second part of the Wi4impact blog series explores the potential of digital media in knowledge transfer. Digital transfer media, such as blogs and podcasts, are increasingly used to ensure that research-based knowledge benefits individuals or society. Digital information and communication technologies allow for a simple, fast, and cost-effective dissemination of information and potentially involve various societal groups in scientific discourse. Despite the potential of digital media to enhance the impact of research and science, they can also impede effective knowledge transfer.

Der zweite Teil der Wi4impact-Blogreihe diskutiert die Potenziale von digitalen Medien für den Wissenstransfer. Digitale Transfermedien wie Blogs und Podcasts werden zunehmend eingesetzt, um sicherzustellen, dass Individuen und Gesellschaft von forschungsbasiertem Wissen profitieren. Digitale Information- und Kommunikationstechnologien ermöglichen eine einfache, schnelle und kostengünstige Verbreitung von Informationen und beziehen verschiedene gesellschaftliche Gruppen in den wissenschaftlichen Diskurs ein. Trotz des Potenzials digitaler Medien, den Impact von Forschung und Wissenschaft zu stärken, können sie effektiven Wissenstransfer auch hemmen.

DOI: 10.34879/gesisblog.2023.79

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Like the GESIS Blog as a platform for scientific exchange in the social sciences, many digital media also serve research-based knowledge transfer. Broadly speaking, the term knowledge transfer refers to the impact of research and science (as discussed in the previous post on knowledge transfer). With the increasing demand for academic knowledge transfer, various strategies are being implemented to ensure that research-based knowledge benefits individuals or society, including digital transfer activities. This blog post builds upon the first post within the blog series on the Wi4impact research project and discusses the potential of digital media for effective knowledge transfer.

Digital media in knowledge transfer

To effectively transfer research-based knowledge to societal and scientific stakeholders, the transfer process involves preparing and translating results, strengthening intermediaries and institutions, and engaging with target contexts to apply findings.¹ This knowledge transfer process heavily relies on communication relationships. While all knowledge transfer activities involve communication, digital media have become crucial communication channels in academic knowledge transfer. Referring to the impact pathways Muhonen et al. (2020)² developed, digital transfer media enable interactive dissemination of research-based knowledge, making societal and scientific stakeholders aware of research results. Additionally, digital transfer media allow higher education and research institutions to respond to societal change communicatively. Digital media can potentially be deployed in any of the eight knowledge transfer fields identified by the German Transfer Barometer³, even though they are often anchored in the transfer field of scientific dialogue, which describes dialogue-oriented formats of science communication with society. However, as science communication can also pursue objectives other than knowledge transfer, it is essential to distinguish between digital knowledge transfer activities and science communication. Nevertheless, dialogue-oriented science communication can help to build potential for an impact of research in society and thus increase the chances of effective knowledge transfer.

Various digital media allow communication relations within the academic community and between science and the public, potentially allowing for effective knowledge transfer. As web-based technologies have created new ways of communication, educational and research-based videos on YouTube, science news on social media platforms like Instagram and X (former Twitter), as well as blogs and podcasts, have become increasingly popular. The pandemic-induced surge in digitalization has further accelerated this development since the beginning of 2020.

In the BMBF-funded research project “Wi4impact”, we analyze the knowledge transfer and impact of science blogs and podcasts of German academia as they have been established as digital knowledge transfer media in the last 15-20 years. Following the introduction of blogs in the early 1990s, which initially channeled the rapidly growing flood of information on the World Wide Web, the real take-off about blogs on the Internet began in the 2000s. Communicators of scientific information soon joined the blogging hype. Individual scientists, academic organizations, journalists, and other communicators use blogs to document research processes and findings, discuss ideas with colleagues, and communicate scholarly issues to a broader audience.⁴ While science blogs in Germany make up only a small portion of the entire blogosphere, a relatively stable proportion of around 15% of those who use the Internet to find out about science and research also use blogs and online forums.⁵ About a decade after science blogs gained widespread popularity, podcasts began to attract increasingly more attention. Different actors use podcasts to communicate scientific information and generate interest and enthusiasm for science.⁶ While only a few science podcasts reach a mass audience, about one in seven people in Germany use podcasts as a source of information about science and research.⁷

Potential and limitations of digital transfer media

Digitally supported communication of research-based knowledge aims to realize a broad, effective, and innovative outreach, thus building potential for the impact of research and science. Digital information and communication technologies enable simple and cost-effective multi-modal forms of publication on the Internet, facilitating rapid dissemination and immediate access to information. By directly addressing and involving recipients, digital media open up the opportunity for a dialogic-reflexive way of academic publishing and promote content accessibility to various target audiences. Moreover, digital media can help overcome linear conceptions of knowledge transfer and facilitate unfiltered and direct interaction between communication actors. Thus, digital media allow for a flexible process of generating, verifying, distributing, and appropriating knowledge.⁸ Additionally, digital media enable low-threshold participation, involving new scientific and societal actors in the scientific discourse. Consequently, digital transfer media promise effective, targeted, fast, and dialogic knowledge transfer.

Despite the potential of digital media for dialogue and participation in scientific discourse, current practices often exhibit linear communication dynamics and prioritize information dissemination.⁹ Participation often remains passive, with stakeholders merely receiving publicly communicated information, lacking active involvement in editorial processes such as selecting topics (agenda setting) or creating media content. Also, preliminary results from our research project show that both communicators and recipients rarely use interactive features of digital media, such as blog comment sections or interactive podcast episodes. Thus, although digital media present substantial potential for knowledge transfer, their impact remains a matter of examination. Additionally, new risks stem from a lack of quality control and the fragmentation of knowledge in the digital media environment.¹⁰

Within the Wi4impact study, we assume that digital media such as blogs and podcasts used in academic contexts serve knowledge transfer to social and scientific stakeholders. The preliminary results of our survey among German science blog and podcast producers support this assumption. However, it needs to be clarified to what extent and in what form digital transfer media can generate an impact of science and research, and thus realize knowledge transfer. Currently, measuring the impact of digital transfer media is still in its early stages, and no standard indicators are available for this purpose. Thus, the study aims to measure the impact of digital media as a means for research-based knowledge transfer. To this end, we will develop and analyze indicators related to the development and sustainability of networking effects for intra-scientific cooperation, as well as cooperation between scientific and non-scientific actors for further research and practical and socially relevant activities.

More information on the project “How knowledge matters in the context of digitization (Wi4impact) – Impact analysis of science blogs and podcasts of German research universities, universities of applied sciences, and non-university research institutions.” can be found here: https://www.gesis.org/forschung/drittmittelprojekte/wi4impact-projektseite

References

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2. Muhonen, R., Benneworth, P., & Olmos-Peñuela, J. (2020). From productive interactions to impact pathways: Understanding the key dimensions in developing SSH research societal impact. Research Evaluation, 29(1), 34–47. https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvz003
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8. Neuberger, C., Bartsch, A., Fröhlich, R., Hanitzsch, T., Reinemann, C., & Schindler, J. (2023). The digital transformation of knowledge order: A model for the analysis of the epistemic crisis. Annals of the International Communication Association, 47(2), 180–201. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2023.2169950
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