Pertussis

This chapter is a case study of newspaper reportage of pertussis/whooping cough vaccination programmes in the UK in the period 1974–1979. The chapter uses digitalised archive data and compares the utility of semantic network analysis and qualitative discourse analysis to understanding how the topic came to be framed in the UK press. The work identifies the growing influence of formal campaigning and in particular the creation of communities of common interests around illness/disability and vaccination hesitancy. The chapter traces the early history of public relations techniques in anti-vaccination campaigning. The chapter argues that the case of whooping cough laid the groundwork for a codification of the responsibilities of citizens to the state in the matter of health.