When Facts don't Work : Emotional sentiment in the Dutch Anti-Vaxx movement

Although vaccination has been regarded with scepticism and hesitancy since the first vaccines were introduced, the development of the internet into an interactive platform on which people can create their own information in combination with other societal factors have made the anti-vaxx movement both more vocal and effective. Possible causes have been explored as research in recent years has put more focus on psychological factors underlying vaccine hesitancy as the traditional method of simply providing more information seemed insufficient. This study tried to add to this existing research by exploring a new type of data, taking the interactive nature of the Web 2.0 into consideration and by bringing in research on conservative movements that show similarities with the anti-vaxx movement. By using quantitative content analysis it explored if patterns that were previously identified were also present within the closed-off Facebook group of the anti-vaxx movement in the Netherlands and studied if negative emotions should be taken into consideration as emotional driver, identifying anger as an emotion of particular interest. The results of the study showed that similar patterns and motivations were present within the closed-off Facebook group, but that people within in this group used less emotional content, engaging in more scientific debates instead. Furthermore, an analysis of underlying emotional sentiment showed that a negative sentiment was more often expressed than a positive one. Seed word analysis showed no indication of either fear or anger being the main emotional driver, but the negative sentiment and research on other movements indicated that further research should not only look into fear as underlying emotion but also take other emotions into consideration