Claiming Credibility in Online Comments: Popular Debate Surrounding the COVID-19 Vaccine

Abstract

At times of crisis, access to information takes on special importance, and in the Internet age of constant connectedness, this is truer than ever. Over the course of the pandemic, the huge public demand for constantly updated health information has been met with a massive response from official and scientific sources, as well as from the mainstream media. However, it has also generated a vast stream of user-generated digital postings. Such phenomena are often regarded as unhelpful or even dangerous since they unwittingly spread misinformation or make it easier for potentially harmful disinformation to circulate. However, little is known about the dynamics of such forums or how scientific issues are represented there. To address this knowledge gap, this chapter uses a corpus-assisted discourse approach to examine how “expert” knowledge and other sources of authority are represented and contested in a corpus of 10,880 reader comments responding to Mail Online articles on the development of the COVID-19 vaccine in February–July 2020. The results show how “expert” knowledge is increasingly problematized and politicized, while other strategies are used to claim authority. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of sociological theories, and some tentative solutions are proposed.

(De)legitimation of COVID-19 vaccination narratives on Facebook comments in Romania: Beyond the co-occurrence patterns of discursive strategies

“…The analysis of the threaded user comments showed that the vaccine opponents' attitudes were highly fuelled by right-wing politicians spreading misinformation about vaccination. The findings are consistent with previous research (Breeze, 2021;Faasse et al, 2016;Meyer et al, 2019;Obreja, 2022;Toth, 2020a) emphasizing: (1) a clear divide between vaccine promoters represented as the enemy of the people and puppets of a corrupt government, on the one hand, and vaccine opponents perceived as illiterate people possessing populist beliefs, on the other hand; (2) a widening of the divide between vaccine opponents and supporters through the usage of sarcasm by both groups. Therefore, within this postmodern medical paradigm, it is of great importance for Romanian health communication practitioners and authorities (1) to engage into conversation with vaccine opponents and supporters in order to combat the fake news spread by populists or online groups; and (2) to constantly and proactively evaluate the online debate on vaccination in order to comprehend the commenters' convictions, to react to opposing viewpoints and to select the most trustworthy and politically independent sources (laypersons and/or health experts) who could deliver persuasive pro-vaccination messages.…”

“…However, this last tactic was also observed in the vaccine promoters' discourse. Breeze (2021) and Meyer et al (2019) emphasize that both groups use ridicule and sarcasm as means of delegitimizing their opponent's claims.…”

Representing agency and action in the #storiesfromvaccination governmental campaign in Romania. A multimodal approach

“…As mentioned above, laypersons were mostly used as message sources (in 81% of the Facebook posts) in the 'I as protagonist' narrative and the parents' stories about their children's getting the jab were mostly frequent in the 'I as witness' narratives (in 69% of the Facebook posts). This finding reflects the postmodern medical paradigm (Kata 2021) where the common people seem to claim authority when promoting vaccine communication (Breeze 2021).…”

A Masked Truth? Public Discussions about Face Masks on a French Health Forum

“…Faced with the uncertain quality of the information, some authors have argued that the collective and distributed dimension of the search for information limits the risks (Esquivel et al 2006 ; Wyatt 2004 ; Ziebland 2006), and that information reliability is a concern taken very seriously by internet users themselves (Nettleton 2005 ). But the emergence of so-called fake news and conspiracy theory has reactivated the previous suspicion and questioned former analyses: for some authors, forums would strongly challenge expertise and established knowledge (Breeze 2021 ; Dixon 2020 ).…”