1. Introduction: The Challenges of Metadiscourse as a Tool to Explore Digital Discourse

This chapter discussed the challenges of using metadiscourse as a tool to explore digital discourse. It highlighted that metadiscourse was initially conceived as a tool to explore mainly academic, monologic, written texts but has proved to be insufficient for other types of texts and has been criticized for being Anglo-centred. The difficulty of identifying a well-defined audience profile in digital communication and the integration of various semiotic modes were identified as factors which might problematize the use of metadiscourse as an analytical framework. However, it concluded that metadiscourse is still proving to be able to provide answers for the understanding of digital interaction.

2. The Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge: The Research Digest as an Object of Study

This chapter identifies and discusses the challenges that scientific communication meets in the digital context, particularly with regard to the relation between metadiscourse and digital discourse analysis. It explores the genre of digital research digest as an example of disciplinary communication practice and focuses on the role played by metadiscoursal resources in the online communication of disciplinary knowledge. The chapter also compares the features of research digests to individual science blogs and addresses the ways in which digests take advantage of the affordances offered by the web.

3.Corpus and Methodology

This chapter describes the research conducted on the research digests posted on the website of The British Psychological Society (BPS). A corpus of 20 digests was analyzed, focusing on the metadiscoursal features identified and classified. The study revealed the multifunctionality of interactive metadiscoursal devices, such as hyperlinks, and their role in organizing information and assessing the level of understanding and expectations of the readers. The analysis also highlights the concept of "proximity" in writing, emphasizing the importance of presenting material in ways that meet the readers' expectations.

4. Findings

The findings reveal that BPS research digests follow a similar layout, combining different modes such as linguistic and visual, as well as interactive affordances of electronic platforms. The linguistic mode of the texts was analyzed, identifying three stages in the body of the text - Stage 1, Stage 2, and Stage 3, with the first two being compulsory and the third optional. The function and examples of each stage were discussed, highlighting the use of metadiscoursal resources by scriptwriters to recontextualize expert knowledge and facilitate its comprehension by readers. The use of interactive metadiscourse was also explored, revealing four types of interactive devices used by scriptwriters. Code glosses, evidentials, frame markers, and transition markers were found to be used for various functions, with code glosses being more frequent in Stage 2 to provide additional information. The use of hyperlinks as digital affordances to provide explanation or clarification was also observed.

5. Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter discussed the role of interactive metadiscourse in scientific discourse for dissemination purposes in research digests. It explored the use of metadiscoursal devices to mediate expert scientific research for heterogeneous audiences and how digests take advantage of the affordances of the web to recontextualize expert knowledge. The study identified various ways in which expert disciplinary knowledge is mediated, including the use of various semiotic modes and the strategic use of metadiscoursal devices. The combination of linguistic and non-linguistic modes in digital texts act as metadiscoursal resources, and the use of hyperlinks was found to play a metadiscoursal role in research digests. Overall, metadiscourse demonstrates its significant potential as a discourse analytical tool to explore digital media and the hypertextuality and multimodality that characterizes it.