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IMMUNIZATIONS

Attitudes Versus Persuasion
Attitudes can be changed using persuasion,
or messages that combine aspects of power,
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emotion, and truth, as observed by Aristotle .
Anti-vaccination messages utilize persuasive
techniques to achieve the guise of a credible
message while evoking empathy from the au-
dience; sentiments that can be difficult to
combat when considering our individual so-
cial identities and levels of attitude resistance .
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Close knit parenting communities are only
one source of vaccine hesitancy and one re-
lated account found that “if other moms say
vaccines are dangerous, whatever a public
health official argues about the science might
not hold much weight” . As communities
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continue to make health-related decisions
based on the distrust of professionals, grow-
ing health concerns will come to affect those
beyond their own children.
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To better understand the persuasive strength behind anti-vacci- readers about potential harms from vaccination practices . As I re-
nation attitudes, I performed a study to assess claims made about viewed the posts, I came across both rewarding and coercive content
vaccination practices on Twitter. These anti-vaccination Twitter and understood that the user intended to induce paranoia about
posts were grouped based on the hashtags under which they were vaccine “symptoms” in the reader. Posts under the Personal Claims
found. Known persuasion theories were considered while examin- theme took advantage of anecdotal evidence that connected anti-
ing the information and used to draw conclusions about the tactics vaccine sentiment to moral values and emotion. I was most sur-
behind the posts. prised to find that some posts included quotes by sources in medical
and science fields; these were considered Professional Claims
What Twitter Tells Us themed posts. Professional opinions were defined as input by
To test the idea that Twitter users promote vaccination hesitancy, sources called doctors, experts, government organizations, or hy-
I began by saving the first six posts related to pre-selected hashtags, perlinks to peer-reviewed studies. Statements that denied the cred-
including “Educate before you vaccinate”, “Don’t vaccinate”, “Vac- ibility of professional opinions, health care authorities, scientific
cines don’t work”, “Antivax”, and “Vaccines”. These searches did findings, and national or state legislature were placed under the
reveal some pro-vaccination posts, however those were not consid- Derogation theme. These posts in particular, incited suspicion
ered in this study. among Twitter users, about other individuals, organizations, and of-
The five different anti-vaccination themes, among the 60 Twitter fered claims providing rationale for mistrust. Lifestyle Alternatives
posts, were termed as Vaccine Safety, Personal Claims, Professional were posts that referred to personal health choices and promoted
Claims, Derogation of Provaccination Institutions, and Lifestyle Al- specific health practices, wellness, parenting methods, and organic
ternatives. Four different theories of persuasion (Power of a Mes- lifestyles.
sage, Peripheral Judgement, Source Credibility, and Cognitive The frequency of posts recorded were based on the five chosen
Dissonance) were also considered and paired with a supporting themes. The most common post theme was Vaccination Safety, and
theme. I would note that all textual data, tags, attached images, and offered personal interpretations of information, with weak persua-
hyperlinked sources were considered while developing conclusions sive strength, although much of the claims were found in published
about the content of the persuasive messages. Evaluation of the data with credible sources (43.3%). The Personal Claims posts uti-
persuasive strength of individual posts was largely based on my own lized anecdotes to support the users claims (24.6%). Health care
biases. providers were quoted encouraging anti-vaccination sentiment and
The Vaccination Safety information themed posts, informed used statistics to justify their opposition to immunization practices
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