A new article – “Facts, hopes, and fears: Recontextualising experimental drug results for diverse audiences” – by our team member Krystyna Warchał has been published in Discourse, Context & Media. The article appears in the special issue on Mediating scientific knowledge for diverse audiences, edited by Rosa Lorés and Pilar Mur-Dueñas.

The article examines how new scientific knowledge is transformed to become accessible, engaging, and relevant for the public, and to what extent such recontextualised content remains anchored in the original published findings. It follows a case study design, investigating the online uptake of results from the third clinical trial for an experimental Alzheimer’s drug, with a focus on how knowledge claims are modified when communicated to diverse audience. The analysis is based on a set of digital texts retrieved through an internet query and published within four weeks of the original announcement. It addresses the following research questions: What types of knowledge transformations occurred in reporting the third trial results to diverse audiences? How was traceability of specialised information ensured? How was the shift from content supported by the original article to that unsupported by the published results marked in the texts?

The findings indicate that transformations affecting knowledge claims occurred at three levels: selection of information, strength of statements, and salience of themes. These modifications reflected relevance to the audience, the need to capture attention, platform constraints, and media priorities. The impact of these transformations on public understanding of the findings was amplified by limited attention to the traceability of information.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2025.100914