1887
Volume 20, Issue 6
  • ISSN 1569-2159
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9862
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

In this study we look at how pro- and anti-vaccination groups construct alternative knowledge and facts discursively and linguistically in order to challenge or support the established scientific knowledge on vaccines. Through this case study we wish to examine how the power of language interacts with a language of power when memes in creative ways mimic, produce and reproduce scientific language and practices. Drawing on a dialogical-semiotic and a discourse theoretical analytical strategy, we, first, adopt Austin’s speech act theory and Bakhtin’s concept of speech genres to argue that memes are performative with an especially illocutionary force and are made up of alien language from scientific discourses. Second, we argue that Laclau’s discursive approach to how political positions are articulated in an antagonistic terrain allows us to see vaccination memes as either subversive or supportive of a scientific social imaginary.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.19101.ros
2021-05-18
2024-10-03
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Askanius, Tina
    2013 “Online Political Activism and Political Mash-up Genres.” Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies4: 1–16. doi:  10.18573/j.2013.10257
    https://doi.org/10.18573/j.2013.10257 [Google Scholar]
  2. Austin, John L.
    2003 “Truth”. InPhilosophical Papers, ed. byJ. O. Urmson, and G. J. Warnock. 118–133. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1979 [1961]) Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online . doi:  10.1093/019283021X.001.0001
    https://doi.org/10.1093/019283021X.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  3. 2011How To Do Things With Words: The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955, ed. byJ. O. Urmson, and M. Sbisà. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1975 [1962].) Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online 2011 doi:  10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198245537.001.0001
    https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198245537.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  4. Bakhtin, Mikhail M.
    1981 “Discourse in the Novel.” InThe Dialogic Imagination, ed. byMichael Holquist, trans. byCaryl Emerson, and Michael Holquist. 259–422. Austin: University of Texas Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bakhtin, Mikhail M.
    1986 “The Problem of Speech Genres.” InSpeech Genres & Other Late Essays, ed. byCarol Emerson, and Michael Holquist, trans. byVern W. McGee. 60–102. Austin: University of Texas Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Barthes, Roland
    1977 “Rhetoric of the Image”. InImage – Music – Text, ed. and trans. byStephen Heath. 32–51. New York: The Noonday Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Bruns, Axel
    2008Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond. From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Buts, Jan
    2020 “Memes of Gandhi and mercury in anti-vaccination discourse.” Media and Communication8 (2): 353–366. doi:  10.17645/mac.v8i2.2852
    https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i2.2852 [Google Scholar]
  9. Campell, James B., Jason W. Busse, and H. Stephen Injeyan
    2000 “Chiropractors and Vaccination: A Historical Perspective.” American Academy of Pediatrics43 (105):1–8. doi:  10.1542/peds.105.4.e43
    https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.105.4.e43 [Google Scholar]
  10. Carpentier, Nico, and Benjamin De Cleen
    2014 “Bringing Discourse Theory into Media Studies: The Applicability of Discourse Theoretical Analysis (DTA) for the Study of Media Practices and Discourses.” Journal of Language and Politics6 (2): 265–293. doi:  10.1075/jlp.6.2.08car
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.6.2.08car [Google Scholar]
  11. Castells, Manuel
    2000The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd ed.Oxford: Blackwell.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Clarke, Christopher E.
    2008 “A Question of Balance: The Autism-Vaccine Controversy in the British and American Elite Press.” Science Communication30 (1): 77–107. doi:  10.1177/1075547008320262
    https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547008320262 [Google Scholar]
  13. Dawkins, Richard
    1976The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Fairclough, Norman
    1995Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Longman.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Fenton, Natalie
    2012 “The Internet and Radical Politics.” InMisunderstanding the Internet, byJames Curran, Natalie Fenton and Des Freedman. 149–176. London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Flyvbjerg, Bent
    2001Making Social Science Matter. Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511810503
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511810503 [Google Scholar]
  17. Gauchat, Gordon
    2012 “Politicization of Science in the Public Sphere: A Study of Public Trust in the United States, 1974 to 2010.” American Sociological Review77 (2): 167–187. doi:  10.1177/0003122412438225
    https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412438225 [Google Scholar]
  18. Hartley, John
    2010 “Silly Citizenship.” Critical Discourse Studies7 (4): 233–248. doi:  10.1080/17405904.2010.511826
    https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2010.511826 [Google Scholar]
  19. Harvey, Amanda M., Sharlynn Thompson, Andrew Lac, and Frederick L. Coolidge
    2019 ”Fear and derision: A quantitative content analysis of provaccine and antivaccine internet memes.” Health, Education & Behaviour46 (6): 1012–1023. doi:  10.1177/1090198119866886
    https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198119866886 [Google Scholar]
  20. Jasanoff, Sheila
    2004 “The Idiom of Co-production.” InStates of Knowledges: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order, ed. bySheila Jasanoff. 1–12. London: Routledge. 10.4324/9780203413845‑6
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203413845-6 [Google Scholar]
  21. Jenkins, Henry
    2006Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Laclau, Ernesto
    1990New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. 2005On Populist Reason. London: Verso.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Mouffe, Chantal
    2000The Democratic Paradox. London: Verso.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. 2005On the Political. London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Ross, Andrew S., and Damien J. Rivers
    2017 “Digital Cultures of Political Participation: Internet Memes and the Discursive Delegimization of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Candidates.” Discourse, Context and Media16: 1–11. doi:  10.1016/j.dcm.2017.01.001
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2017.01.001 [Google Scholar]
  27. Searle, John R.
    1976 “A Classification of Illocutionary Acts.” Language in Society1 (5):1–23. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4166848. 10.1017/S0047404500006837
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500006837 [Google Scholar]
  28. Shifman, Limor
    2014Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge: Massachusetts: MIT Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Strydom, Piet
    2008 “Risk communication: World Creation through Collective Learning under Complex Contingency Conditions.” Journal of Risk Research11 (1): 5–22. doi:  10.1080/13669870701521248
    https://doi.org/10.1080/13669870701521248 [Google Scholar]
  30. van Dijck, José
    2012The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Wakefield, Andrew J., Simon H. Murch, Andrew Anthony, John Linnell, David M. Casson, Mohsin Malik, Mark Berelowitz, Amar P. Dhillon, Michael A. Thomson, P. Harvey, Alan Valentine, Susan E. Davies, and John A. Walker-Smith
    1998 ”Ileal-lymphoid-nodular Hyperplasia, Non-specific Colitis, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children.” Lancet351 (9103): 637–41 (retracted). 10.1016/S0140‑6736(97)11096‑0
    https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(97)11096-0 [Google Scholar]
  32. Wiggins, Bradley E., and G. Bret Bowers
    2015 “Memes as Genres: A Structurational Analysis of the Memescape.” New media & society11 (17): 1886–1906. doi:  10.1177/1461444814535194
    https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814535194 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.19101.ros
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.19101.ros
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error