Though it is a
centuries old practice, anti-vaccination has become a growing trend since the
rise of the internet. Anti-vaccination rhetoric complicates neoliberal beliefs
about public health and systems of medical knowledge-making. This study follows
100 Twitter accounts which advance anti-vaccination beliefs. Studying these
accounts reveals that anti-vaccination is part of a larger moral and
epistemological universe of belief. Anti-vaccination advocates on Twitter use a
digital activist identity to create affective networks which draw from
epistemologies of conspiracy theory and connect to current political events.
Anti-vaccination advocates on Twitter are not uninformed. Rather, they ascribe
to their own process of information legitimization. Anti-vaccination advocates
on Twitter draw from their complex epistemologies and affective networks to build
an alternative immunology which focuses on maintaining the purity of the
individual body as a metaphor for protection of the state and of humanity
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/12762080 |
| Date | 05 August 2020 |
| Creators | Mattie Elizabeth Bruton (9205124) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Morality_Epistemology_and_Activism_How_Anti-vaccination_Advocates_on_Twitter_Construct_a_Rhetoric_of_Alternative_Immunity/12762080 |
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