In the contemporary media environment, it is impossible for researchers to control how their research is disseminated and interpreted. Researchers’ findings can become lost in translation, particularly when deemed ‘newsworthy’. This information breakdown reminds us of the children’s game, ‘telephone’. In telephone, an individual whispers a message to another individual, which is repeated to another and so on. When the final individual receives the message, it has likely changed substantially. Our model of the information breakdown within the research telephone focuses on two factors—the messenger and the receiver (figure 1). The messenger is the researcher who conducts the study, submits the manuscript for review and disseminates the findings through traditional and social media. The receivers of messaging may further propagate the findings, while making their own inferences, thereby crafting slightly revised messages. Unlike the game of telephone, the research telephone does not follow a single path; intermediate pathways can be bypassed (eg, disseminating findings prior to publication). When the scientific method is misrepresented or not comprehensively disclosed, subtle yet important misinterpretations occur, or the research message may be deliberately skewed to maximise ‘clicks’. When scientific writers fail to …

中文翻译：

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研究就像一场糟糕的“电话”游戏：减少从临床医生和研究人员到公众的信息崩溃

在当代媒体环境中，研究人员不可能控制他们的研究如何传播和解释。研究人员的发现可能会在翻译中丢失，尤其是当被认为具有“新闻价值”时。这种信息细分让我们想起了儿童游戏“电话”。在电话中，一个人向另一个人耳语消息，然后重复给另一个人，依此类推。当最后一个人收到消息时，它可能已经发生了重大变化。我们的研究电话信息分解模型侧重于两个因素——信使和接收者（图 1）。信使是进行研究、提交手稿以供审查并通过传统媒体和社交媒体传播研究结果的研究人员。消息的接收者可能会进一步传播发现，同时做出自己的推论，从而制作稍微修改过的信息。与电话游戏不同，研究电话不遵循单一路径；可以绕过中间途径（例如，在发表之前传播研究结果）。当科学方法被歪曲或没有全面公开时，就会出现微妙但重要的误解，或者可能故意歪曲研究信息以最大化“点击”。当科学作家未能…… 或者研究信息可能被故意歪曲以最大化“点击”。当科学作家未能…… 或者研究信息可能被故意歪曲以最大化“点击”。当科学作家未能……