Interview with Dimitris Trimithiotis and Theodosia Demetriou: When pro-vaccine media discourses meet vaccine hesitancy

In this interview, Dimitris Trimithiotis and Theodosia Demetriou talk about their Journal of Language and Politics article, When pro-vaccine media discourses meet vaccine hesitancy: an intertextual analysis of online news on COVID-19. They explain their key findings and how they hope to build on this work.

Photo by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash

A key takeaway is that official discourse—especially in times of crisis—often operates through technocratic assumptions about expertise, urgency, and compliance. While such discourse is presented as neutral and rational, it is deeply ideological in both form and effect.

Why did you decide to write this piece?

The article emerged from an interest in how public communication in contemporary democracies often functions not only as a technical or informational practice, but also as a deeply political and ideological one—at times resembling the discursive strategies of propaganda in authoritarian regimes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed a complex interplay between technocratic and populist discourses: pro-vaccine messaging frequently relied on appeals to scientific authority, institutional trust, and moral urgency, while also provoking or responding to populist reactions rooted in distrust, exclusion, and counter-claims of “truth from below.”

Rather than treating technocracy and populism as opposing forces, we were drawn to their circularity—how expert-driven language can fuel populist backlash, and how populist framings, in turn, reshape the contours of technocratic discourse. The project served as a discursive entry point into the language of crisis governance, showing how technocratic and populist logics co-produce narratives that sustain political myths under conditions of uncertainty and urgency.

We were particularly interested in the crisis imaginaries that circulated during the pandemic—visions of threat, sacrifice, and emergency that not only legitimised present action but also functioned prelegitimately, preparing publics to accept more enduring transformations in democratic norms, civic responsibility, and institutional power.

What are the key takeaways?

A key takeaway is that official discourse—especially in times of crisis—often operates through technocratic assumptions about expertise, urgency, and compliance. While such discourse is presented as neutral and rational, it is deeply ideological in both form and effect. These assumptions can produce unintended consequences, especially when they intersect with populist logics that oppose institutional authority and elite knowledge.

The article illustrates how technocratic and populist discourses are not simply antagonistic, but synagonistic—engaged in mutual struggle within a shared discursive terrain—and ultimately co-constitutive. For example, the moralization of science through imperatives like “do the right thing” or “trust the experts” can mirror the emotional and exclusionary tones often associated with populist rhetoric. Similarly, some institutional narratives construct “the hesitant” as deviant others, reinforcing binaries of reason versus ignorance that echo the dynamics they aim to counter. Both genres simplify complexity—though for different purposes. Understanding this interplay is essential for analyzing how official discourse circulates, gains or loses legitimacy, and reproduces political myths during ideological fragmentation.

More broadly, the article explores how legitimation and prelegitimation function discursively during emergencies—how narratives naturalize exceptional measures, and how repeated appeals to urgency contribute to the normalisation of crisis as a permanent condition. In this sense, the study sheds light on how crisis imaginaries shape the so-called “new normal” and the reconfigurations of public trust it entails. At the same time, the article challenges the assumption that crisis discourse always aims to normalize new conditions. It shows how media narratives also pre-legitimized a return to the “old normal,” positioning vaccination as the only moral and scientific path to restoring pre-crisis life. This reframes crisis imaginaries not only as tools of transformation, but also as discursive attempts to symbolically undo change.

The study also foregrounds how intertextual hierarchies—especially the dominance of elite voices and marginalization of public perspectives—produced discursive imbalances that eroded trust and reinforced perceptions of coercion. The blending of technocratic, emotional, and religious registers, though intended to strengthen pro-vaccine messaging, introduced contradictions that alienated segments of the public. These findings point to the need for more inclusive, dialogic approaches in future crisis communication.

Where do you plan to go next in your research?

Dimitris: My current project builds on these concerns by examining electoral discourse on youth-dominated digital platforms. I’m focusing on the TikTok campaign of Phidias Panayiotou, a Cypriot influencer and newly elected Member of the European Parliament, to explore how young audiences are not only addressed, but discursively positioned as the only legitimate embodiment of ‘the people’. The campaign draws on the stylistic and affective features of the platform—irony, spontaneity, visual intimacy—to reconfigure political authority in generational and aesthetic terms. This project continues my broader interest in how legitimacy is constructed through language and media, particularly as institutional trust shifts and new communicative norms emerge.

Theodosia: Now that I’m working as an English teacher in public secondary schools, I’m interested in how students engage with media and public discourse in the classroom. Building on previous research into legitimation and crisis narratives, I want to explore how English language teaching can foster critical media literacy — helping students analyze power, bias, and voice in the texts they encounter. My aim is to bridge discourse studies with classroom practice, developing tools that support critical thinking and democratic engagement among young learners.