Vaccine safety activists on the Internet

Wolfe, Robert M.

doi:10.1586/14760584.1.3.249

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Thus, in the unique word ecology of the Internet, antivaccination groups successfully have staked out the search term ''vaccination'' as their own ecological ''niche'' (Wolfe, 2002), whereas provaccination groups have domination of search terms based on the Latin root immunis. It is not unreasonable to assume that this occurred naturally: Whereas provaccinationists use ''vaccination'' or ''immunization'' interchangeably, antivaccionationists have a strong philosophical preference for ''vaccination,'' as reflected in our results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vaccination or Immunization? The Impact of Search Terms on the Internet

Wolfe

Sharp

2005

Journal of Health Communication

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With steadily rising use of the Internet as a source of health information, public health authorities have expressed concern about the increasing visibility of unscientific information promulgated on the Internet by opponents of childhood vaccination. Searches were made on the four most popular Internet search engines using different combinations of the terms, "vaccination," "immunization," "immunisation," "immunize," "immunise," "vaccine," and "shots." Thirty results were tabulated for each search engine. Searching with the keyword "vaccination" resulted in a significantly higher percentage of antivaccination websites as compared with searches with all other keywords. Of all child-related websites retrieved, the single keyword "vaccination" yielded 40% provaccination sites and 60% antivaccination sites. By contrast, the single keyword "immunization" yielded 98% provaccination sites and 2% antivaccination sites. Using a combination of the words "vaccination" and "immunization" produced results between these two extremes. Thus, any use of the term "vaccination" during an Internet search is likely to expose a parent to a significant amount of antivaccination information. Recommendations are discussed for future research and methods to reduce the impact of misinformation on health consumers using the Internet.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vaccination or Immunization? The Impact of Search Terms on the Internet

Wolfe

Sharp

2005

Journal of Health Communication

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“…Interestingly, medical professionals themselves were more likely to spread dread rumours than wish ones (Chua & Banerjee, 2018). Reports also suggest that some groups of people believe and spread false news due to ideological reasons (Wolfe, 2002). Indeed, prior work postulates confirmation bias as one of the primary causes why people share misinformation (Kim & Dennis, 2019).…”

Section: Social Media and Misinformation Sharingmentioning

confidence: 99%

What drives unverified information sharing and cyberchondria during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Laato

Islam

Islam³

et al. 2020

European Journal of Information Systems

368

400

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The World Health Organisation has emphasised that misinformationspreading rapidly through social mediaposes a serious threat to the COVID-19 response. Drawing from theories of health perception and cognitive load, we develop and test a research model hypothesising why people share unverified COVID-19 information through social media. Our findings suggest a person's trust in online information and perceived information overload are strong predictors of unverified information sharing. Furthermore, these factors, along with a person's perceived COVID-19 severity and vulnerability influence cyberchondria. Females were significantly more likely to suffer from cyberchondria, with males more likely to share news without verifying its reliability. Our findings suggest that to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 misinformation and cyberchondria, measures should be taken to enhance a healthy scepticism of health news while simultaneously guarding against information overload.

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“…While some of these antimedicine movements, such as the antivaccination movement, have been the object of extensive scientific research [ 3 - 5 , 8 , 9 ], the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)-denialist movement has received little attention from social science despite its having been a focus of huge public controversies and a long-standing cause of trouble for medical and activist communities dealing with HIV/AIDS [ 10 , 11 ]. The “AIDS-dissident movement” as they call themselves denies either human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) existence or a connection between HIV and AIDS.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An AIDS-Denialist Online Community on a Russian Social Networking Service: Patterns of Interactions With Newcomers and Rhetorical Strategies of Persuasion

Meylakhs¹,

Rykov²,

Koltsova³

et al. 2014

J Med Internet Res

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BackgroundThe rise of social media proved to be a fertile ground for the expansion of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)-denialist movement (in the form of online communities). While there is substantial literature devoted to disproving AIDS-denialist views, there is a lack of studies exploring AIDS-denialists online communities that interact with an external environment.ObjectiveWe explored three research areas: (1) reasons for newcomers to come to an AIDS-denialist community, (2) the patterns of interactions of the community with the newcomers, and (3) rhetorical strategies that denialists use for persuasion in the veracity of their views.MethodsWe studied the largest AIDS-denialist community on one of the most popular social networking services in Russia. We used netnography as a method for collecting data for qualitative analysis and observed the community for 9 months (at least 2-3 times a week). While doing netnography, we periodically downloaded community discussions. In total, we downloaded 4821 posts and comments for analysis. Grounded theory approach was used for data analysis.ResultsMost users came to the community for the following reasons: their stories did not fit the unitary picture of AIDS disease progression translated by popular medical discourse, health problems, concern about HIV-positive tests, and desire to dissuade community members from false AIDS beliefs. On the basis of strength in AIDS-denialist beliefs, we constructed a typology of the newcomers consisting of three ideal-typical groups: (1) convinced: those who already had become denialists before coming to the group, (2) doubters: those who were undecided about the truth of either human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) science theory or AIDS-denialist theory, and (3) orthodox: those who openly held HIV science views. Reception of a newcomer mainly depended on the newcomer’s belief status. Reception was very warm for the convinced, cold or slightly hostile for the doubters, and extremely hostile or derisive for the orthodox. We identified seven main rhetorical strategies of persuasion used by the denialists on the “undecided”.ConclusionsContrary to the widespread public health depiction of AIDS denialists as totally irrational, our study suggests that some of those who become AIDS denialists have sufficiently reasonable grounds to suspect that “something is wrong” with scientific theory, because their personal experience contradicts the unitary picture of AIDS disease progression. Odd and inexplicable practices of some AIDS centers only fuel these people’s suspicions. We can conclude that public health practitioners’ practices may play a role in generating AIDS-denialist sentiments. In interactions with the newcomers, the experienced community members highlighted the importance of personal autonomy and freedom of choice in decision making consistent with the consumerist ideology of health care. The study findings suggest that health care workers should change a one-size-fits-all mode of counseling for a more complex and patient...

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Vaccine safety activists on the Internet

Cited by 18 publications

References 9 publications

Vaccination or Immunization? The Impact of Search Terms on the Internet

Vaccination or Immunization? The Impact of Search Terms on the Internet

What drives unverified information sharing and cyberchondria during the COVID-19 pandemic?

An AIDS-Denialist Online Community on a Russian Social Networking Service: Patterns of Interactions With Newcomers and Rhetorical Strategies of Persuasion

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