When the Biden administration announced COVID-19 vaccine mandates on Nov. 4 for businesses with 100 or more employees, protests erupted in cities across the U.S.

A recent study of the slogans displayed by protestors found three distinct themes.

Tim F. Liao, a professor of sociology on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, analyzed the content of 150 images with anti-vaccination themes that were published online by news media between the day of the announcement and Jan. 13, the day after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the federal vaccine-or-test mandate for big businesses.

Using a well-liked search engine, Liao positioned and picked up images containing text with the keywords “anti-vaccine,” “protest,” “U.S.” and “America” and grouped them based on similar messages or intents.

Liao found that three major themes emerged: Support for individual freedom/rights, opposition to government control, and anti-science misinformation or disinformation.

While misinformation may contain incorrect or debunked material, it isn’t intentionally deceptive, whereas disinformation comprises purposely false allegations which can be intended to deceive or mislead consumers, in accordance with the study.

“The vast majority of the slogans opposing COVID-19 vaccines were about evenly divided between assertions of individual rights and resistance to government control, which composed 46% and 44% of the sample, respectively,” said Liao, who also holds appointments in statistics and East Asian languages and cultures on the university.

“The remaining 10% of the slogans contained anti-science misinformation/ disinformation similar to false claims concerning the safety or origin of the vaccines or conspiracy theories.”

A number of the popular slogans in the primary two categories were “my body, my alternative,” “medical freedom” and “stop the mandate,” Liao found.

Among the many disinformation slogans within the sample were false declarations that the vaccines were poison, known to cause seizures and never placebo-tested, Liao found.

It is vital to notice that slogans asserting individual rights and resistance to government control could also be two sides of the identical coin, as individuals who strongly imagine in personal liberties are more likely to oppose any policies that they perceive as infringing on those liberties.”

Tim F. Liao, professor of sociology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Likewise, individuals who imagine disinformation usually tend to resist a mandate and assert the primacy of private rights, he said.

Barely greater than 67% of the U.S. population was fully vaccinated – defined as having received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine – by the point Liao accomplished the study on May 24, in accordance with the study.

Published within the journal Frontiers in Communication, the study sheds light on the feelings of people that oppose vaccinations generally or perceived government overreach, in addition to the facility wielded by propaganda and misinformation in undermining public health directives.

In response to the continued proliferation of misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines, the World Health Organization issued a warning that the “infodemic” of inaccurate information poses as great a risk to public health because the disease itself, in accordance with the WHO website.

Some researchers have called for “psychological inoculation” – informational campaigns that prepare people to discover and disrespect false and misleading messages concerning the vaccines, in accordance with the study.

With recent omicron variants circulating and fewer people wearing masks in public, vaccination is becoming the essential defense against the disease, Liao wrote.

“Anti-science misinformation should be vehemently corrected,” Liao said. “The one way forward is to correct the misinformation and disinformation about vaccinations and for the federal government to emphasise all and sundry’s civic responsibilities – which include vaccination – for the advantage of society and our collective future.”

Source:

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Journal reference:

Liao, T.F., (2022) Understanding anti-COVID-19 vaccination protest slogans within the U.S. Frontiers in Communication. doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.941872.