Covid Vaccination Disputes in Czechia: Political Myth-Making and Boundary Work
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F23%3A10470448" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/23:10470448 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=n6eGE8GRBv" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=n6eGE8GRBv</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11024-023-09505-z" target="_blank" >10.1007/s11024-023-09505-z</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Covid Vaccination Disputes in Czechia: Political Myth-Making and Boundary Work
Original language description
The paper argues that one of the reasons the suppression of scientific dissent during the Covid pandemic has been so severe was because the dominant scientific Covid narrative has been turned into a political myth, i.e. a narrative mobilizing groups in support of key moral values. Taking the example of Covid vaccination, I show the key values with which it became linked in Czechia. Questioning vaccination came to be seen as endangering these values, which made scientific dissent appear as particularly dangerous. I further analyse how this schematic discourse dealt with "free-vax" scientists, who were not against Covid vaccination as such but only against its blanket application. I show that their discreditation was mainly carried out by various fact-checking NGOs or social media influencers, who attempted to delegitimize them not by scientific arguments but rather by associating them with more dubious groups of social actors, or labelling their views as "disinformation". This discrediting strategy was largely successful, but it also had some undesirable social and political backfire effects, in that it pushed some of the free-vaxxers out of the liberal democratic mainstream and forced them to seek alliance with more anti-systemic segments of the population in attempts at political resistance.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60304 - Religious studies
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/EF16_019%2F0000734" target="_blank" >EF16_019/0000734: Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2023
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Minerva
ISSN
0026-4695
e-ISSN
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Volume of the periodical
61
Issue of the periodical within the volume
3
Country of publishing house
NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS
Number of pages
23
Pages from-to
383-405
UT code for WoS article
001037582400001
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85166256228