How Perceptions of Responsibility and Affective Consequences Influence Parents’ Digital Media Engagement in Relation to Human Papillomavirus Vaccination

Abstract

Individuals are expected to be responsible for their own health and that of their families—and act accordingly. Yet, being in a position of responsibility might be undesirable for individuals either unable or reluctant to comply with the expectations this responsibility entails. In this article, I explore how parents experience the process of engaging responsibly with digital media in relation to the question of human papillomavirus vaccination. The study is based on interviews with eighteen Danish parents, and my findings show that these parents not only understand themselves but also other actors in terms of responsibility, and that being positioned in terms of responsibility can have negative affective consequences. I argue that meeting the expectations of biological citizenship should not necessarily be a goal in relation to complex health topics.

An exploratory study of expectant mothers’ knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about infant vaccination

“…These cultural attitudes, also reflected in our study, can potentially culminate in a context predicted by Rogers and Pilgrim (1995) in which mass vaccination, rather than vaccination opposition, appears to be the historical anomaly (Hobson-West, 2007). Markedly, research by Nordtug (2022) identified that in a Western country like Denmark (or the United States in our study), individuals are expected to be responsible for their own health, whether they want to be or not. Some parents have reported feeling unprepared and overly burdened with this "responsibilization" to attempt to understand vaccine information on their own, preferring instead to place their trust in other actors, such as healthcare professionals, who are more knowledgeable, and effectively delegate the task of sifting through scientific vaccine information to make the right choice for their child.…”

Ethics Beyond the Checklist: Fruitful Dilemmas Before, During, and After Data Collection

“…Interdisciplinary research poses certain ethical dilemmas, and questions as to when one is an expert on what is not set in stone. Reading information on a health authority's website does not make one an expert, but it might be argued that meeting some of the informants' unmet requests for information could help resolve some of their frustrations-especially for those for whom searching for such information themselves was a hurdle (Nordtug, 2022). In cases like this one, dilemmas thus also revolve around balancing obligations to help informants while not exceeding or trespassing outside one's own area of expertise.…”

“…The vaccine against HPV was introduced as a part of the Danish childhood vaccination program in 2009, and the introduction was initially successful (Sander et al, 2012; Suppli et al, 2018). However, a few years later, the vaccine came under considerable media scrutiny in Denmark, followed by a decline in vaccination uptake (Nordtug, 2022; Suppli et al, 2018). For the project, M.N.…”

Responsibility in Medical Sociology: A Second, Reflexive Look

“…Harper & Rail’s ( 2012 ) and Dolan’s ( 2014 ) respondents also resisted attributions of blame. Nordtug ( 2022 ) found that parents often felt overwhelmed by the onerous burden of their perceived responsibility for decision-making about their children receiving the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, and thought health and media professionals should share in this burden.…”