Doctoral researchers are sometimes asked in their viva what their plans for dissemination are. Gulp. But this is a question worth thinking about. It’s not a trick question. Examiners are genuinely interested in how you think about what happens after the viva. They may also have some helpful ideas about what you could do.
However, the ways that you think about your research and what happens to it before and after the viva do matter. They shape what you prioritise while you’re waiting for your results, as well as what you do after. And when you[re thinking about what you might do, it can be helpful to focus on three words commonly used to discuss dissemination. And the good news is that you can consider these right at the very start of the doctorate.
The three terms are dissemination, communication, and sharing. These terms overlap of course, but thinking about each of them separately can shape how you think about getting your work out into the world.
Dissemination generally refers to a broadcast model. You have research results; you send them out. The metaphor is agricultural, scattering seed across ground. This metaphor positions the researcher at the centre of outward-moving activities. Imagine you’ve completed a large empirical study and you want the results to reach as many relevant practitioners or policymakers as possible. Dissemination means you think about reach, coverage, and deliberate efforts to get something across a distance. Typical dissemination activities include policy reports, a press release or two, a conference paper aimed at a wide field. These are pretty taken-for-granted dissemination activities and they are good to consider seriously – the what, how, when. But there is also a limitation or two. Dissemination assumes the research is finished, the findings are fixed, and the audience’s job is to receive them. You may need to do more than disseminate if you want to influence or guide what your readers/ audience does next.
Communication is a circuit rather than a broadcast. Something goes out; something comes back. Thinking about communication points you to the possibility that there might be an exchange. The exchange might change your understanding as well as someone else’s. This kind of exchange often happens when research meets practice. Practitioners interpret findings through their own experience; they push back, adapt, or identify what the research missed. If you’re presenting work to a group of, say, nurses or social workers and you’re genuinely interested in what they make of it, you’re communicating, not disseminating. You leave time for discussion. You don’t just present and run. The term communication also fits the iterative work of academic writing: a paper communicates an argument, which other scholars respond to, which refines the argument over time. Dissemination doesn’t quite capture that back-and-forth. It starts the process, but there is still more to think about.
Sharing is different again. To share something is to acknowledge that you don’t hold it alone. In participatory or community-based research, sharing is often the description researchers use to think about their results, because the people the research is about have had some hand in shaping what gets said. Sharing implies a relationship, an ongoing connection, and sometimes a degree of co-ownership over the knowledge produced. It’s also the word that fits when research has a long after-life in a particular community. When you go back, when you stay in touch, when what you found continues to be used and reinterpreted by the people it concerns.
None of the three terms is better than the others. You may do one, two or all three. You might do different things in different projects. Using each of the three terms is really just a helpful prompt to help you think about what you’re doing and what your intentions are. If you’re posting a report on a website, dissemination is the term that fits. If you’re running a workshop where you want practitioners to interrogate and extend your findings, communication fits better. If you’re returning findings to a community that helped generate them, sharing is probably most helpful. You have to think about what you need to do in order to make the sharing reciprocal and generative.
And there’s another benefit to thinking about the three terms. The term you use shapes the work you plan. Researchers who think primarily in terms of dissemination tend to produce outputs. Researchers who add in communication also think about audiences, timing, and form. Researchers who think in terms of sharing tend to think about relationships. All three types of thinking are often necessary.
So when you write a plan for getting your work into the world, it’s worth asking which frame(s) you’re using. For dissemination: who needs to know this, how do I reach them, and what format will travel furthest? For communication: who am I talking to, what do they already think, and what would a genuine exchange look like? For sharing: who has a stake in this knowledge, what do I owe them, and what form of return would actually be useful to them?
