The Role of Online Communities in Vaccine Controversies

Vaccines play a key role in public health intervention, contributing to dramatic declines in morbidity and mortality rates. While medical knowledge delivery has been traditionally made by physicians (traditionally considered the best source of credible knowledge), patients can now widely access scientific and non-scientific information resources. There has been considerable research on knowledge delivery. However, we currently know little about healthcare knowledge delivery in online communities. In this research, we draw on material-discursive practices to conduct a qualitative study on knowledge delivery, with a focus on pro- and anti-vaccination movements. Our findings show that as knowledge delivery practices in offline settings and in online communities have different materializations, they can influence each other via their performative outcomes. We created a timeline to show important events regarding the influence of offline and online knowledge delivery practices on each other. We finally highlight the study contributions for research and practice.