Rhetorical Analysis Of The MMR Vaccine

The techniques and beliefs held by both the proponents and opponents of vaccines are worthy of study due to their shocking similarity. This suggests that this debate may be the precursor for a new form of scientific public debate and is therefore worthy of more study than it has been given. The proponents and the opponents of the modern vaccine debate both use a wide variety of rhetoric techniques, and it is not uncommon to read two articles written with different opinions but identical in their rhetoric nature. Most of these rhetorical techniques fit within Mulkay’s (1993) system of the Rhetoric of Hope and the Rhetoric of fear. Mulkay (1993, p. 721) discusses how both sides of debates surrounding science often rely on what he describes as …show more content…
This essay will talk about the recent uprising against the MMR Vaccine, and subsequently vaccines in general, in the wake of Andrew Wakefield’s discredited report into a link between vaccines and autism (Wakefield et al. 1998, p. 1). After the report was released and spoken about on national television by Jenny McCarthy, a well-known American television host and model, it began to be swept up and has since been a common topic in American media and resulted in a sudden decrease in the number of vaccinated children (McIntyre 2008). However, despite the debates current resurgence in the media there have been no qualitative studies done into the reasons why parents feel uncomfortable vaccinating their children. Instead many of the attacks are directed at Jenny McCarthy and her personal ideologies and she has since been described as “The nation’s most prominent purveyor of anti-vaxxer ideology” (Grove, …show more content…
The rhetoric of hope is used a lot by the proponents of vaccines, though not as much as the rhetoric of fear. The proponents of vaccines often talk about how vaccines have been used as a helpful cure for hundreds of years, suggesting their benefit to humanity (Omer et al. 2009, p. 1981). They constantly link to references surrounding how many diseases have been successfully eradicated or almost eradicated by the use of vaccines. They often have personal stories about how vaccines have personally helped someone and the trials they faced before becoming vaccinated (Sandlin, 2015). This use of the rhetoric of hope by the scientific community is not a shocking development and is to be expected, as it is how the rhetoric of hope has been used