Vaccines Going Viral: Peripheral Public Discussion of Scientifically Justified Policies

ABSTRACT

This article examines Reddit-users’ (“redditors”) responses to a story concerning proposed legislation that would require parents considering not vaccinating their children to participate in a public-health delivered education session on the science of immunization. In theorizing Reddit as a “peripheral public” venue and attending to its use of algorithms to sort content and commentary, this case study uses a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach to explore the rhetorical strategies employed by redditors as they discuss the proposed legislation and the scientific controversy behind it—suggesting new strategies for investigating participatory media, as well as insights for key stakeholders in the vaccine controversy.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. I would like to express my gratitude to Rhetoric Review reviewers, Erika Sparby and Michael Zerbe, for their generosity of time and generative feedback throughout the revision process. I am also appreciative of the helpful critiques provided by Randy Allen Harris and Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

2. The introduction to Adrienne Massanari’s Participatory Culture, Community, and Play: learning from reddit provides a useful orientation to the site and its history.

3. Public scientific controversies” differ from “scientific controversies,” as the latter refers to dissent or disputes amongst scientists, and do not involve the public.

4. At the time that the vaccine story went viral, the “hot” algorithm was used to populate the front page. However, in March 2018 Reddit introduced another “best” algorithm as the default content-sorting mechanism to give redditors who are logged in a more customized experience. The hot ranking remains the default content-sorting algorithm for individuals who are not logged in and continues to be a popular option for sorting content for those who are logged in (see, cryptolemur).

5. A now discredited study from 1998 that indicated a robust correlation between the MMR vaccine and autism, contrived with financial motivations in mind, has continued to perpetuate the anti-vaccination movement for complementary reasons: (1) because some continue to claim that vaccines cause autism, and (2) the study acts as evidence that scientific studies can fudge the science because of ulterior motives (Deer 78).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Devon Moriarty

Devon Moriarty ([email protected]) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. Her research, supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Talent Program, examines science communication as it unfolds on Reddit. Her work as Lead Research Assistant, on Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher’s Networked Expertise Project, pairs the rhetoric of science and technology with rhetorical genre studies to explore how expertise is performed, adjudicated, and communicated in both multidisciplinary teams and public spaces. Moriarty’s writing has also appeared in journals including Technical Communication Quarterly and Social Epistemology.