Knowledge communication and knowledge dissemination in a digital world.

This introductory article to the special issue provides a brief theoretical introduction to pragmatic research on the communication and dissemination of domain-specific knowledge across new media, discussing some of the central problems, such as the impact of digital technologies on understanding and learning, the changes in the participation framework, their impact on the construction of credibility and identity. We also call attention to the need for multimodal and hypermodal analysis of the processes of recontextualisation in selected genres. In this context, the papers in the special issue converge in presenting a nuanced view of a broad range of phenomena. Our goal is to encourage research on digital discourse to keep up with the present technological developments and the increasing complexity emerging from the ensuing interaction of knowledge transmission and knowledge circulation practices. • Communication and dissemination of domain-specific knowledge in a digital world need attention in pragmatic research. • Digital technologies have an impact on understanding, knowing and learning. • Intersubjective positioning can be explored as a concomitant of relevant high-quality information. • Methods can be devised to address credibility construction. • Multiple perspectives can be combined to assess communication strategies in (hyper-)multimodal environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]