Anti-vaccination Conspiracy Theories and Theorists: Analysis of a Corpus of Offline and Online Argumentative Texts in the Guardian and the Daily Mail

The present paper explores the discourses of and about anti-vaccination conspiracy theories in two national British newspapers, the Guardian and the Daily Mail, following a corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Studies approach. The analysis focuses on the frequency and usage of the lemma conspiracy in articles dealing with the controversy surrounding the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine in the UK; both traditional, printed genres like editorials and letters to the editor and newer, social media genres like comments posted on the two newspapers' Facebook pages are investigated. The results show that conspiratorial beliefs concerning the science and politics of vaccination are widely discussed both offline and online; however, the noun phrases conspiracy theory and conspiracy theorist have a marked negative connotation and are mainly used by their opponents as insults. Supporters may avoid or refute these labels and the stigma attached to them, or they may reclaim their use to underline their feeling of superior knowledge compared to the general population, who has allegedly been brainwashed by the establishment's propaganda. Moreover, the analysis of conversations unfolding on Facebook confirms the antagonising quality of such interactions, where the interlocutors' only aim is to defend their pre-existing point of view from the other side's attacks. Discourses of and about anti-vaccination conspiracy theories thus deviate from scientific and health communication to express strong ideological positionings and ultimately to create and defend identities.

本文采用语料库辅助的批判性话语研究（Critical Discourse Studies）方法，探究英国两家全国性报纸——《卫报》与《每日邮报》中关于反疫苗阴谋论的话语及其相关讨论。分析聚焦于conspiracy词元在英国麻疹、腮腺炎和风疹疫苗争议相关文章中的出现频率与使用方式；研究涵盖传统印刷体裁（如社论、读者来信）与新兴社交媒体体裁（如两家报纸脸书页面上的评论）。研究结果表明，涉及疫苗科学与政治的阴谋论信念在线上线下均被广泛讨论；然而，名词短语‘阴谋论（conspiracy theory）’与‘阴谋论者（conspiracy theorist）’带有明显的负面含义，主要被反对者用作侮辱性词汇。支持者可能回避或反驳这些标签及其附着的污名，或重新定义这些词汇的用法，以强调自己相较于据称已被当权者宣传洗脑的普通大众拥有更优知识的认知。此外，对脸书平台上展开的对话分析证实了此类互动的对抗性特质——对话双方的唯一目的是捍卫自身原有的观点，抵御来自对方的攻击。因此，反疫苗阴谋论的话语及其相关讨论偏离了科学与健康传播的范畴，转而表达强烈的意识形态立场，并最终构建与捍卫特定身份。