The Covid-19 anti-vaccination movement in Cyprus an investigation of its discourses (AMID)

This project examines the speeches articulated in COVID-19 anti-vaccination onsite protests in Cyprus, situating the topic of anti-vaccination within culture wars. Data cover a period of eight months (July 2021–February 2022) and were collected through attending protests and through selecting past speeches of anti-vaccination protests that are available online in the form of shared videos. The data were analysed in terms of the main topics, the implicit and explicit influences/resources, and the linguistic strategies contained in these speeches. Results reveal that four are the main topics included in these speeches: government/governors/politicians, vaccines/vaccination/(un)vaccinated, measures, and children/parents. In addition, the influences/resources of these speeches derive from the political, religious, social, scientific, and historical spheres/domains, while the linguistic strategies used by speakers involve representations of processes and social actors which include – and exclude thereof – certain actions and ‘doers’ in specific ways. Overall, this project bridges the gap caused by both the absence of studies on onsite anti-vaccination protests and the very limited consideration of anti-vaccination discourse in Greek-speaking contexts.