Covid-19 Anti-Vaccination of Parents on Twitter: A Thematic Analysis

Abstract

Vaccine studies against the Covid-19 virus were carried out at an unprecedented pace, and the vaccines developed were started to be implemented one year after the start of the pandemic. However, vaccine hesitancy has been spreading increasingly. In the digital age, social networks are both the center of misinformation produced and spread by the anti-vaccine movement and the first point of reference in the search for health-related information. Thus it increases the possibility of individuals with vaccine hesitancy to be affected by anti-vaccine discourses. Understanding the reasons for anti-vaccination is the starting point of the struggle. This study; it was conducted to explore the reasons of parents who are against the Covid-19 vaccine for children in Turkey. Anti-vaccination parents’ tweets, grouped under various hashtags on the Twitter, were recorded, and 1292 tweets were selected out of 10 thousand 732 tweets and analyzed with thematic analysis method. Findings; showed that vaccines were opposed with seven main themes: disease-centered reasons, vaccine-centered reasons, religion-centered reasons, trust-centered reasons, nationalism-centered reasons, child-centered reasons and rights-centered reasons. It has been determined that the parents who are in search of scientific information about the vaccine are more hesitant about the vaccine than against the vaccine. It is thought that the results of the study will increase the power of the fight against vaccination by providing a better understanding of the reasons for vaccine rejection, and facilitate the global and local control of the pandemic.