Publications and Research
Document Type
Book Chapter or Section
Publication Date
1-2025
Abstract
Abstract: Although millions have died from SARS-CoV-2 illness, COVID vaccines are credited with stemming the tide. Vaccinations and boosters significantly decrease the incidence of severe illness and death (even if they don’t usually prevent COVID-19 infection). Despite the success of global vaccination efforts, frequent reports of vaccine hesitance and refusal suggest that public health communications need improvement.
The chapter begins by acknowledging adverse events associated with COVID vaccination, including rare cases of anaphylaxis, GBS, and myocarditis. An inoculation-theoretic rationale is offered for this admission of vaccine risks: just as immune defenses mount when organisms are exposed to pathogens, so too may rhetors preemptively refute an opposing viewpoint, when exposed in small doses.
Next, it is argued that psychological accounts of vaccine decision-making (including from psychological reactance theory, the elaboration likelihood model, gain/ loss framing, and others) view minds as either:
a) already made up, or,
b) subject to change upon encountering incoming stimuli.
‘Stimulus-sensitive’ factors may be covariates within a single study, or defeatist conclusions reached about the possibility of ever persuading vaccine refuseniks.
Finally, controlling language is outlined, and strategies for avoiding boomerang effects are proposed, such as using modal adverbs and restating imperatives as assertions. Deciding what makes a command direct or indirect indicates definitional ambiguity in the literature. The chapter concludes by claiming that vaccine messages are basically commands, often disguised as statements. Hopefully, the ideas presented here suggest alternatives to deficit models which frame vaccine refusers as characterologically and epistemically enfeebled.
Included in
COVID-19 Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Health Communication Commons, Medical Humanities Commons, Public Health Education and Promotion Commons, Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons
Comments
NOTE: This is a draft version of forthcoming Chapter 3.1 in David Berube, editor, Vaccination Resistance and Hesitance: Lessons from COVID-19 (Pandemic Resilience Series). Edited volume under contract with Springer/NATURE (ISBN to be assigned).