Covid Vaccination Disputes in Czechia: Political Myth-Making and Boundary Work

Kód výsledku v 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>

Výsledek na webu

<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>

Jazyk výsledku

angličtina

Název v původním jazyce

Covid Vaccination Disputes in Czechia: Political Myth-Making and Boundary Work

Popis výsledku v původním jazyce

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 &quot;free-vax&quot; 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 &quot;disinformation&quot;. 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.

Název v anglickém jazyce

Covid Vaccination Disputes in Czechia: Political Myth-Making and Boundary Work

Popis výsledku anglicky

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 &quot;free-vax&quot; 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 &quot;disinformation&quot;. 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.

Druh

J_imp - Článek v periodiku v databázi Web of Science

CEP obor

—

OECD FORD obor

60304 - Religious studies

Projekt

<a href="/cs/project/EF16_019%2F0000734" target="_blank" >EF16_019/0000734: Kreativita a adaptabilita jako předpoklad úspěchu Evropy v propojeném světě</a><br>

Návaznosti

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Rok uplatnění

2023

Kód důvěrnosti údajů

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Název periodika

Minerva

ISSN

0026-4695

e-ISSN

—

Svazek periodika

61

Číslo periodika v rámci svazku

3

Stát vydavatele periodika

NL - Nizozemsko

Počet stran výsledku

23

Strana od-do

383-405

Kód UT WoS článku

001037582400001

EID výsledku v databázi Scopus

2-s2.0-85166256228