Manufacturing Consent for Vaccine Mandates: A Comparative Case Study of Communication Campaigns in France and Australia

Abstract

Governments making childhood vaccination more mandatory is controversial, and can be met with pushback from the public. Hence such policies may be accompanied by some form of communication to manufacture consent for either vaccination, mandatory vaccination policies, or both. This paper engages in case studies of two countries which recently made vaccination more mandatory and accompanied this policy change with concerted communication campaigns. It examines the French and Australian governments’ new mandatory vaccination regimes, the communication strategies undertaken to manufacture consent for them, and the complex ways these policies interact. The analytical focus is the content of the websites at the center of the communications campaigns, “Vaccination-Info-Service” and “Get the Facts,” as well as relevant academic articles, government press releases, documents and reports, and key informant interviews conducted in both countries. We report three key findings. First, we demonstrate how both countries’ governance strategies intertwine persuasion with coercion in complex ways. Second, we examine how each country’s website reflects local constructions of under-vaccination, especially regarding social groups and motivations. Third, we consider their vastly different communication styles and how these reflect alternative ways of constructing the public as well as differences in the use of communication expertise in the websites’ production. These factors produce different tactics regarding manufacturing consent for vaccination and for vaccine mandates. We conclude that manufacturing consent for vaccination is a laudable exercise, but find that the involvement of numerous actors and institutions results in various interests, objectives, and conceptions of what drives audience reception, resulting in divergent strategies. This is particularly the case when it comes to manufacturing consent for vaccine mandates themselves; a more complex task that relies on strong understandings of community, knowledge, and effective channels of state power.

COVID-19 vaccine Mandates: An Australian attitudinal study

“…Our participants’ support for COVID-19 vaccine mandates can be explained by two key factors. First, repeated reference to existing or historical vaccine mandates in Australia for children, workers, and travellers points to a population sensitised to government control when it comes to vaccinating [88] , [89] , reinforced by the ubiquity of messaging and a public discourse that pushes the collective benefits of vaccination and spurns vaccine refusal [90] , [91] , [92] . Participants’ regular recourse to existing mandate models demonstrated the power of existing policy types as heuristics for COVID-19 mandates, suggesting that path dependency makes existing mandates attractive for new scenarios.…”

Public opinion on a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy in France: a cross-sectional survey

“…As has been seen in the past with childhood immunizations, vaccinating a majority of the population is easier than reaching the last pockets of unvaccinated people, the unwilling or weakly motivated [5,6]. Faced with this challenge in the past, many countries have resorted to various forms of vaccine mandates [7].While recourse to constraint in its various forms can be effective in raising vaccine coverage -particularly by pushing those who wait, those who refuse, to act -it also presents the risk of antagonizing part of the public, causing reactance and stimulating antivaccine movements [8]. Because the debate around mandatory COVID vaccination is emerging in many countries, it is crucial to understand the conditions in which this policy can be widely accepted.…”

Public opinion on a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy in France: a cross sectional survey

“…The public acceptance of a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination is low in France but may change. Opinion of mandatory childhood vaccines has changed several times in the last two decades [25]. Before making COVID-19 vaccine mandatory other levers must be activated, especially since the president of France promised in December 2020 that the vaccine would not be made mandatory.…”

“…As has been seen in the past with childhood immunizations, vaccinating a majority of the population is easier than reaching the last pockets of unvaccinated people, the unwilling or weakly motivated [5,6]. Faced with this challenge in the past, many countries have resorted to various forms of vaccine mandates [7]. While recourse to constraint in its various forms can be effective in raising vaccine coverage –particularly by pushing those who wait, those who refuse, to act – it also presents the risk of antagonizing part of the public, causing reactance and stimulating antivaccine movements [8].…”