Unvaccinated against one’s will
How weak-ties Reddit communities affirm and encourage pro-vaccination choices in the face of strong-ties conflict
Keywords:
social media, vaccines, qualitative, health communication, community immunity, RedditAbstract
In 2019, vaccine hesitancy was declared a global health threat. Reddit has been identified as a key source of vaccine information. In contrast to research that often portrays social media platforms as sources of health misinformation, the current study focused on individuals seeking and exchanging pro-vaccine viewpoints on Reddit as a source of validation and empowerment to become vaccinated for the first time or to make pro-vaccine choices for their dependents. Guided by the Strength of Weak Ties Theory, this qualitative study explored 1) how individuals engaged in vaccine-related subreddits to navigate conflicts with their strong-ties connections, and 2) how weak-ties commenters responded. A keyword search related to “vaccines” and “relationships” revealed pertinent posts from users seeking to navigate strong-ties relational conflicts about vaccines on Reddit. Posts were sorted using the “relevance,” “all time,” and “recency” functions. Coding employed a simultaneous and iterative thematic analysis approach using the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Emerging themes focused on contradicting values, empowerment, validation, walking away, and medical recommendations. The current study highlights the complicated relational dynamics in perceived controversial health communication choices, such as vaccination, and illustrates how social media enables this discourse, connecting otherwise-disparate weak-ties users to inform and validate vaccine decisions-- a “personal” choice which greatly impacts society via community immunity. Implications discuss vaccine information sharing on Reddit and the potential impact of Strength of Weak Ties Theory for health information seeking and decision making on social media, specifically related to social bridging capital.
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