What happens to facts after their construction?: characteristics and functional roles of facts in the dissemination of knowledge across modelling communities

Abstract

The core question addressed in this paper is: What happens to facts after their construction? The main contribution is to analyse the different practices of disseminating, circulating and crossfertilizing model-produced facts about Haemophilus influenzae type b and Streptococcus pneumoniae bacterial infections and the preventive public health measures against the invasive disease forms. Through the analysis, the paper shows how facts become characterised in different utilizing communities. It elaborates an account of the functional roles of facts that are capable of shaping the knowledge practices in the receiving communities. These analyses suggest how facts can travel beyond their production sites to be used as evidence in other domains