Science and Politics in the Polio Vaccination Debate on Facebook: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Public Engagement in a Science-Based Dialogue †
-
Authors:
Daniela Orr1,*,
Ayelet Baram-Tsabari1
-
Received 09 October 2017 Accepted 15 December 2017 Published 30 March 2018
- ©2018 Author(s). Published by the American Society for Microbiology.
-
[open-access] This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode), which grants the public the nonexclusive right to copy, distribute, or display the published work.
- *Corresponding author. Mailing address: Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Technion City, Haifa 3200003, Israel. Phone: +972-52-8382567. Fax: +972-4-829-5634. E-mail: [email protected].
Abstract:
This study examines the ways in which the public discusses and debates the scientific issue of vaccinations in the online social media environment of Facebook. We apply a mixed-methods approach, where a qualitative analysis is combined with a quantitative analysis of the characteristics of the debate on polio vaccinations in a Facebook group dedicated to parental and professional dialogue. The qualitative analysis suggested that dialogue became more political than scientific overall, yet the quantitative analysis showed that the discussants did not abandon the scientific nature of the issue at hand.
References & Citations
Supplemental Material
-
Appendix 1: Classification of items according to topic and use of evidence
-
MyBook is a cheap paperback edition of the original book and will be sold at uniform, low price.
-
PDF
84.45 Kb
-
PDF
-

Article metrics loading...
Abstract:
This study examines the ways in which the public discusses and debates the scientific issue of vaccinations in the online social media environment of Facebook. We apply a mixed-methods approach, where a qualitative analysis is combined with a quantitative analysis of the characteristics of the debate on polio vaccinations in a Facebook group dedicated to parental and professional dialogue. The qualitative analysis suggested that dialogue became more political than scientific overall, yet the quantitative analysis showed that the discussants did not abandon the scientific nature of the issue at hand.

Full text loading...
Author and Article Information
-
Received 09 October 2017 Accepted 15 December 2017 Published 30 March 2018
- ©2018 Author(s). Published by the American Society for Microbiology.
-
[open-access] This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode), which grants the public the nonexclusive right to copy, distribute, or display the published work.
- *Corresponding author. Mailing address: Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Technion City, Haifa 3200003, Israel. Phone: +972-52-8382567. Fax: +972-4-829-5634. E-mail: [email protected].