Distrust, Danger, and Confidence: A Content Analysis of the Australian Vaccination-Risks Network Blog

"[B]y integrating the ELM, this study draws attention to rhetorical devices...while disclosing additional insights into the persuasive mechanisms underlying such rhetoric."

A subset of Australia's population expresses vaccine hesitancy, which may be fueled by small groups of vocal vaccine deniers, such as the Australian Vaccination-risks Network (AVN). This study features a content analysis of the AVN's blog posts published from 2012 to 2019. By identifying message variables associated with the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion, the goal is to explore the ways by which AVN media makers are using persuasive cues when communicating to Australian publics. The findings are explored in the context of Australian vaccine hesitancies and the country's No Jab No Pay/Play (NJNP/P) policies.

In this study, vaccine hesitancies are conceived of as reasons why people refuse or delay vaccination. Such decision-making can be affected by fears about vaccine safety, especially when reinforced by personal stories about presumed vaccine injury that are often shared online and in local networks of concerned parents. Distrust may be compounded by negative encounters with medical practitioners who dismiss patients' vaccine concerns, as well as by the sense, by some, that the total spectrum of data on vaccine safety and efficacy is not being freely shared with the public. Furthermore, pro-vaccination policies and actions, such as NJNP/P, may be characterised as coercive; the sense that one's choices around vaccines are being limited can induce "psychological reactance".

Headquartered in Bangalow, New South Wales, AVN was officially established in 1997 as the Australian Vaccination Network. The AVN blog features articles on vaccines written by active members, letters from community supporters, updates and invites pertaining to the group's activities, and re-posts and links to other anti-vaccination media.

This study uses a content analysis of AVN posts to investigate the expression of several persuasive cues associated with the ELM. On this model, there are two major avenues of persuasion resulting from exposure to communications: the central route, which encompasses attitude change through an individual's diligent scrutiny of a persuasive message, and the peripheral route, which involves reliance on various mental shortcuts or persuasion cues to help formulate opinions and behaviours.

With this in mind, this study developed the following code list of 13 message variables, which can be positioned within the ELM as persuasive cues: Arousal of Fear; Asking Questions; the Contrast Principle and Negativity Effect (CPNE); Disrupt-then-Reframe (DtR); Message Repetition; Number of Message Arguments (NMA); Rule of Reciprocity; Scarcity Principle; Self-Referencing; Social Consensus; Source Cues; Statistics and Technical Jargon (STJ); and Two-Sided Persuasion (TSP). Using these 13 codes, the researcher analysed 191 blog posts, finding seven readily occurring persuasive cues:

• The Scarcity Principle was the most frequently observed persuasive cue, occurring in 72.77% (N=402) of the analysed AVN blog posts. On this principle, when an item appears to be in limited supply, its scarcity can serve as compelling peripheral cue, causing perceptions of its value and subjective desirability to be increased. In the majority of cases, AVN scarcity claims convey to audiences that Australian policymakers are stripping away - hence, making scarce - personal health choices around vaccines.
• Across AVN blog posts, Arousal of Fear is expressed, for example, in numerous references to adverse vaccination reactions, ranging from anaphylaxis to autism and death; other fear claims concern vaccine ingredients.
• With regard to the variable Asking Questions, one blog post hosted on the AVN webpage begins with: "Our children. Is there anything we wouldn't do for them?" This simple rhetorical question characterises a major theme in AVN's media, which is that one of the community's primary goals is to keep children safe and to protect parents' autonomy of healthcare choices.
• Research has found that a message's persuasive arguments tend to be accepted more readily when a communicator is described as possessing prestigious academic credentials. The Source Cues message variable occurs in almost half (47.12%) of the sample articles and can be seen in references to academic degrees, as well as professional proficiencies and direct experiences with vaccine injury, within AVN blog posts.
• In the category of CPNE, Contrast Cues (N = 189) can be identified in 38.74% of AVN blog posts, as the knowledge, truthfulness, and policy ideas of vaccine skeptics are compared with those advanced by vaccination supporters. Examples include posts comparing the news media's lack of research, dishonest "hate speech", and parroting of "pharmaceutical propaganda" with what is described as legitimate, scientific vaccine data emphasised by AVN's truth-seeking community.
• STJ variables are, for example, a regular feature of articles discussing vaccine ingredients and autism-vaccine links, which can include complex chemistry and medical nomenclature alongside statistics.
• Social Consensus cues (N= 82), which are exhibited in 24.08% of AVN blog posts, typically appear as manifestations of social proof, which can involve mentioning how many people have apparently been negatively affected by vaccines.

The paper identifies three overaching persuasive themes from patterns in the data:

• Distrust is primarily encapsulated in AVN's recurring Scarcity Principle cues, but it is also communicated through co-occurring incidences of Asking Questions, CPNE, and Social Consensus. This persuasion theme relates that Australians' health choices are being restricted through NJNP/P by an increasingly undemocratic and untrustworthy government that is working in collusion with BigPharma, while counter-vaccine data and immunisation injury reports are being suppressed.
• Danger revolves around Arousal of Fear prompts, further buttressed by Asking Questions cases, CPNE, STJ, and Social Consensus cues.
• Confidence emphasises the personal expertise of skeptical individuals, the credentials of specialists and similarly experienced people who also support counter-vaccine initiatives, and the science behind AVN claims.

In conclusion: "Although these findings relate specifically to an AVN sample, they may also be instructive for non-Australian contexts. For example, it is worth investigating whether other antivaccination media also place greater emphases on Distrust messages than even fear appeals or credibility cues, while considering the import of such persuasion tactics as they relate to audience trust, vaccine confidence, and persuasion tendencies."