Paper short abstract:

The paper compares online communication strategies of proponents and opponents of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) in Czech and Slovak Republics and provides an explanation as to why pro-CAM communication is more successful.

Paper long abstract:

As suggests the rise in use of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM), and subsequent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, efforts to tackle anti-science movements in society yield little success. This paper investigates the reasons of such ineffectiveness. It looks at two communities in Czech and Slovak Republics, studying and comparing their online communication strategies, with the primary sources being forums, websites and Facebook groups. The first community are users of Master Mineral Solution, sold as a remedy for malaria, cancer and other ailments. The second community are people who try to convince proponents of this CAM that they are misled. The study focuses on the differences between how pro-CAMs communicate among themselves and how anti-CAMs communicate towards the pro-CAMs. The analysis is symmetrical, as it looks at the two sides with the same conceptual tools.

Overall, the analysis shows that the two sides hold different positions to knowledge creation. The three identified misalignments are the understanding of who is an expert, what constitutes an evidence and how much the communication is inclusive. I group these under McKechnie's 'rules of play' and claim that we first need to understand those rules to be able to communicate with pro-CAM side effectively. The responsibility, however, also rests on public institutions which need to foster trust and public engagement to decrease the attractiveness of CAM. The continued usage of the deficit model of communication runs contrary to this. As such, my primary suggestion is that communication strategies should be revised to engage with the pro-CAM community via a position of mutual respect.