This study examines the transformation of the scientific abstract within the context of digital scholarly communication, reconceptualizing it as a complex form of knowledge representation situated at the intersection of knowledge organization, discourse studies and multimodality. It seeks to overcome the traditional fragmentation between documentary and discursive approaches and to position the abstract as a strategic epistemic interface within contemporary knowledge ecosystems.
The study adopts a theoretical and integrative approach, combining perspectives from knowledge organization, information retrieval and genre analysis. It develops a conceptual framework that articulates the documentary and discursive dimensions of abstracting and applies a comparative analytical approach to emerging typologies, including plain language summaries, visual abstracts, video abstracts and transmedia formats.
The findings indicate that the scientific abstract is undergoing a process of epistemological and functional reconfiguration. It evolves from a subordinate textual subgenre and a technical instrument of documentary representation into a hybrid, multimodal and functionally differentiated system of knowledge representation. The analysis demonstrates that emerging formats are characterized by distinct communicative functions, modes of meaning-making and degrees of structural complexity, reflecting their adaptation to diverse audiences and digital environments.
This study is conceptual and theoretical in nature and does not include empirical validation of the emerging abstract formats discussed. The analysis focuses on the evolution of the scientific abstract within contemporary scholarly communication and therefore does not assess the effectiveness of specific formats across disciplines, audiences or platforms. Future research should develop comparative empirical studies examining comprehension, visibility, engagement and retrieval performance across multimodal abstract formats. Further investigation is also needed into standards, quality assessment frameworks, metadata schemes and the integration of multimodal representations into knowledge organization and information retrieval systems.
This study highlights the need to revise existing frameworks in knowledge organization and information retrieval to accommodate multimodal and distributed forms of representation. It also underscores the importance of developing new criteria for the evaluation, indexing and retrieval of multimodal abstracts, as well as fostering competencies in multimodal communication within academic training.
Multimodal and accessible forms of scientific abstracts can enhance the democratization of scholarly communication by improving access to research for non-specialist audiences, including practitioners and policymakers. These formats may help reduce cognitive and linguistic barriers, supporting more inclusive dissemination practices and fostering broader societal engagement with scientific knowledge.
This paper provides an integrative reconceptualization of the scientific abstract as a hybrid epistemic and communicative interface. By bridging knowledge organization and discourse studies, it contributes to expanding the notion of knowledge representation and offers a novel analytical framework for understanding the role of abstracts within the evolving ecology of digital scholarly communication.
Scientific abstracts are reconceptualized as epistemic and communicative interfaces within digital scholarly communication.
Abstracting is understood as a process of recontextualization across media, audiences and contexts of use.
Multimodality reshapes knowledge representation through the integration of diverse semiotic modes.
Emerging formats reflect a functionally differentiated system of abstract genres in digital environments.
Multimodal abstracts pose new challenges for indexing, evaluation and information retrieval systems.
