Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Narrative Criticism Of Online Anti-Vaccine Stories Of Vaxtruth, Stephanie Willes

Graduate Research Symposium (2018 - present)

Using narrative methods, this professional paper provides a rhetorical criticism of an anti-vaccine community called, VaxTruth. This analysis will aid in understanding why anti-vaccine narratives are so persuasive and what they offer people who join anti-vaccine communities. To explore this phenomenon I first look at the affordances of the Internet, how it encourages participation, which spreads misinformation, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories. Understanding how actions through the Internet become rhetorical acts, I turn to rhetorical theories of counterpublics and exigences, which also aids in finding the outcomes of anti-vaccine discourses. Current findings show meta-narratives of government conspiracy theories that break away …