‘Am I being unreasonable to vaccinate my kids against my ex’s wishes?’ – A corpus linguistic exploration of conflict in vaccination discussions on Mumsnet Talk’s AIBU forum

IF 2.3 2区 文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION Discourse Context & Media Pub Date : 2022-08-01 DOI:10.1016/j.dcm.2022.100624
Tara Coltman-Patel , William Dance , Zsófia Demjén , Derek Gatherer , Claire Hardaker , Elena Semino
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引用次数: 5

Abstract

Online parenting forums are popular sources of information about childhood vaccinations, but vaccination discussions, especially online, are often polarised and polarising (Jenkins & Moreno 2020). This can have very real implications for ultimate vaccination decisions (Al-Hasan et al., 2021). Among the most visited parenting forums in the UK is Mumsnet Talk, hosted on the parenting website Mumsnet, which has a reputation for being straight-talking and combative. This supposedly applies particularly to its most popular Talk Topic, Am I being unreasonable?’ (AIBU), which also includes numerous threads related to vaccinations.

In this paper we combine corpus-based methods with qualitative discourse analysis to examine over 6-million words of vaccination-related discussions on 895 threads on AIBU from the inception of Mumsnet in 2000 to May 2021. We provide evidence of a greater presence of confrontation-related language in these threads when compared with similar threads not on AIBU, zooming in on nine keywords that can be used as insults (e.g. ‘idiot’ and ‘bitch’). The use of these keywords reveals the multiple types of conflict at play, including between people with opposing and similar vaccine stances. While some insults are directed at each other within the forum, the majority are directed at external third parties, often the protagonists at the heart of offline conflicts detailed in the original post of an AIBU thread. We show that, although these insults perform impoliteness towards external third parties potentially perpetuating conflict that predates any posting on the forum, they simultaneously have a supportive and community enhancing function within the threads. We reflect on the implications of our findings for the role of AIBU as a point of reference and site of interaction for parents facing vaccination-related issues and decisions.

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“我不顾前任的意愿给孩子接种疫苗是不合理的吗?”——在Mumsnet Talk的AIBU论坛上对疫苗接种讨论中冲突的语料库语言探索
在线育儿论坛是关于儿童疫苗接种的流行信息来源,但关于疫苗接种的讨论,特别是在网上,往往是两极分化和两极分化的(Jenkins &莫雷诺2020)。这可能对最终的疫苗接种决策产生非常实际的影响(al - hasan等人,2021年)。英国访问量最大的育儿论坛之一是Mumsnet Talk,由育儿网站Mumsnet主办,该网站以直言不讳和好斗著称。这应该特别适用于它最受欢迎的谈话话题:我是不是不讲道理?(AIBU),其中还包括许多与疫苗接种有关的帖子。在本文中,我们将基于语料库的方法与定性话语分析相结合,研究了从2000年Mumsnet成立到2021年5月,AIBU上895个帖子中超过600万字的疫苗相关讨论。我们提供的证据表明,与不在AIBU上的类似帖子相比,这些帖子中存在更多与对抗相关的语言,放大了9个可用作侮辱的关键词(例如“白痴”和“婊子”)。这些关键词的使用揭示了多种类型的冲突,包括持反对和类似疫苗立场的人之间的冲突。虽然有些侮辱是在论坛内针对彼此的,但大多数是针对外部第三方的,通常是AIBU线程原始帖子中详细描述的离线冲突的核心主角。我们表明,尽管这些侮辱行为对外部第三方表现出不礼貌,可能会在论坛上发布任何帖子之前使冲突永久化,但它们同时在线程中具有支持和社区增强功能。我们反思了我们的研究结果对AIBU作为面临疫苗相关问题和决策的父母的参考点和互动场所的作用的影响。
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来源期刊
Discourse Context & Media
Discourse Context & Media COMMUNICATION-
CiteScore
5.00
自引率
10.00%
发文量
46
审稿时长
55 days
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