And it's here! Published!  Our latest research paper on childhood vaccine hesitancy! 

Our research shows that communication focused on the need for vaccination and the lack of space for discussion and hesitation can be a foreign cause of escalating radical debate and polarisation. 

Although Covid-19 was not the first pandemic, it was a unique event in terms of scale and intensity. Different countries responded to the threat in different ways. Europeans differed in their risk perceptions, attitudes towards vaccines and vaccine uptake. The discourse around Covid-19 was in the media spotlight for many months. Our work, based on media analysis, revealed important differences but also some similarities in the media debates in different countries.

Our study focused on seven European countries and considered two dimensions of comparison: before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. An extremely rich methodological approach, including semantic field analysis and discourse analysis of the mainstream media, allowed us to explore the set of meanings associated with vaccination that may influence the actions of parents and caregivers of children when deciding whether to vaccinate or perhaps abstain.

Highlights of our study:

• Vaccine hesitancy is co-produced by media discourses.Covid-19 has caused a shift in European discourses about vaccines.
• The shift is also evident in the understanding of time: from prevention (future) to effective distribution of vaccines (now).

We invite you to read on! We think this text will help us understand how we can better debate, talk and create a shared public space in the face of growing health and social challenges!

You can read it here --> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953624001692