ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how scientific facts are discursively and linguistically constructed in the vaccination debate during the Covid-19 pandemic, drawing on data from Danish news media and discussions from selected Facebook groups critical of the Danish government’s Covid-19 measures. Ernesto Laclau’s political discourse theory alongside Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts of the centripetal and centrifugal forces, guide the understanding of language as a hegemonic, unifying, and centralising force, as well as an opening and liberating force within a verbal-ideological realm. The analysis of the different discursive positions thriving within a hybrid media environment reveals two opposing representations of science: First, authoritative elite discourses in news media about vaccination draw on a scientific social imaginary, which establishes truths aligned with the government’s goals, particularly when the goal disregards the scientific uncertainty related to the vaccines. Second, anti-vaccination counter-discursive movements present themselves as opposing an authoritative scientific social imaginary but are nonetheless dominated by a hegemonic and authoritative ideological discourse that is unresponsive to contradictory arguments.
