#Vaccine Hesitancy: Analyzing Online Conversations as Formative Communication Research

In light of the fact that vaccination rates in the Netherlands (NL) are declining, this presentation shares research that sought to explore how vaccine hesitancy is discussed online. The internet provides a place where communities of likeminded audiences can form and thrive as existing opinion are confirmed by peers (echo chambers) and there is selective exposure (filter bubbles). The result: polarisation and normative effects.

In this context, the researchers analysed conversation networks as stakeholder analysis, conducting formative research to identify online communities, frames and narratives, and social influencers. They retrieved tweets from August 23 through September 9 2017, also retrieving followers of those twitter users as well as the accounts they are following. This allowed them to create network data and to conduct a network and content analysis. They used network visualisation, text mining, and qualitative analysis to examine how the different frames and narratives flow through the media network.

The results revealed to them a central community of unaligned audience members surrounded by four distinctive communities trying to influence the conversations at the centre: health care, public health, anti-establishment, and Flemish and Dutch media. These communities employed different frames and narratives. The following frames and narratives were identified in the health care and public health communities:

• Research - those looking at research on vaccination and linking to published studies, for example
• Announcements - those simply stating when vaccinations are being offered, for instance
• "Head-in-the-sand" - those ridiculing anti-vaxxers as people being in denial
• Framing - those commenting on how vaccination is conveyed through images and the media

In contrast, the following narratives were identified in the anti-establishment community:

• Conspiracy - those contending, for example, that science showing the safety of vaccination is sponsored by big pharmaceutical companies
• Freedom - those asserting the right to control over one's own body
• Anti-religion - those with atheist views affecting their perceptions on vaccination
• Nature - those indicating a choice to leave their fate up to whatever will happen

Strikingly, all the narratives and frames were adopted in conversations in the central community, except the research- and conspiracy-narratives. As such, this study shows the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment which narratives should be supported or contested.

One way of doing this is by collaborating with social influencers. The analysis also revealed certain identifying influencers in NL, distinguishing between influencers who are influential throughout the network, and influencers who are especially influential within a certain community.

Editor's note: The above is a summary of a presentation delivered at Shifting Norms, Changing Behaviour, Amplifying Voice: What Works? The 2018 International Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) Summit featuring Entertainment Education, held April 16-20 2018 in Nusa Dua, Indonesia.

Click here for the 27-slide presentation in PDF format.