‘The cold hard facts’ immunisation and vaccine preventable diseases in Australia's newsprint media 1993–1998

Vaccine Rejecting Parents’ Engagement With Expert Systems That Inform Vaccination Programs

“…However, the parents may also be drawing from media representations and/or shared cultural values of the institutions, rather than direct experience. Our results and previous research (Gaudino and Robison 2012;Benin et al 2006;Leask and Chapman 2002) depict competing expert systems at work, with allopathic healthcare (buttressed by scientific research, government and industry) challenged by the alternative epistemology of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Our aim is to understand what it is about allopathic healthcare-the expert system behind vaccination-that leads some parents to distrust both its "access points" (healthcare professionals in particular) and the system as a whole.…”

Lessons from an online debate about measles–mumps–rubella (MMR) immunization

“…[3,24,25] Hence, while the online medium is unique in its ability to convey a rapid exchange of opinions and provide a window into immediate responses of various audiences, the messages themselves did not change remarkably from debates carried out over longer periods of time in traditional media such as newspapers. [25][26][27] Similar to the conventional media representations of immunization debates, the forum implied that people engaged in immunization were evenly weighted between those for and those against. Population based studies show that even in the UK, where the MMR controversy led to reduced coverage, the majority continued to accept the vaccine.…”

Who’s Responsible? Media Framing of Pediatric Environmental Health and Mothers’ Perceptions of Accountability

“…They also detected significant differences in frames across media sources, such that newspapers were more likely than magazines to identify system-level solutions (e.g., legislative, regulatory or industry modification) than individual changes. In the context of childhood vaccines, Leask and Chapman (2002) analyzed Australian newspaper coverage of vaccination against preventable diseases and found that most stories blamed parents (versus lack of government coordination) for low immunization rates.…”