Civic Side Effects of Vaccines: Insights from the Rumour Mining Project

The Rumour Mining project, funded by Riksbankens jubileumsfond, investigates vaccine hesitancy as a form of civic engagement. It examines the political tensions and public debates that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project offers new perspectives on vaccine skepticism, viewing it not as ignorance or lack of knowledge, but as a deeper lack of faith in modern government and science.

We expand the notion of side effects to include unintended social, epistemic, and civic processes resulting from the public’s management of major societal challenges, such as the pandemic and the mass vaccination strategy. Like medical side effects, these civic side effects can be both beneficial and undesirable. This conceptual expansion is increasingly important in today’s media-saturated society, where information of varying degrees of truth and falsity spreads through social networks and communities, both digitally and otherwise. Additionally, we provide insights into how vaccine rumors function, how they spread, and what they mean.

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