Robert Prettner

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | VU · Language and Communication Department

ABSTRACT In the Netherlands, parents of newborns typically participate in two-, four--, and eight-week medical consultations to monitor their children’s development and discuss vaccinations, which will not be administered before eight weeks. During these visits, healthcare professionals routinely ask parents if they intend to vaccinate their childr...

Childhood vaccination consultations are considered an important phase in parents’ decision‐making process. To date, only a few empirical studies conducted in the United States have investigated real‐life consultations. To address this gap, we recorded Dutch vaccination conversations between healthcare providers and parents during routine health con...

In this paper, we compare the governmental and public framings of expertise in the Dutch Covid-19 vaccination campaign in the period between January 1st and April 30th, 2021. Specifically, we collected all statements regarding vaccination on three interrelated stages: (1) the official press conferences; (2) Twitter, for responses to government poli...

The corona crisis of 2020 took many by surprise. Quite suddenly, politicians had to make drastic decisions to guarantee public health, affecting basic civil liberties. In justifying their decisions, politicians internationally reverted back to a direct staging of experts to legitimize their proposals for what internationally became known as the “lo...