Karl Patrick Mendoza, University of Canterbury

“My research explores what the news coverage of the Dengvaxia vaccine scandal in the Philippines may do with ‘trust culture’ in journalists’ news story and source selection and parents’ vaccine decision-making. It is a theoretical study, but at its very core lies the intention of bringing into light the “cultural” dimensions of vaccine hesitancy to better understand how being parent matters to vaccine decision-making. A key finding of my study is that vaccine scandals are triggers rather than causes of vaccine hesitancy in and of themselves. For the parents in my research, I found that strong parenting beliefs questioning biomedicine and provider-driven approaches to children’s healthcare as key driving factors of parents’ delay or refusal of childhood vaccines.

I implemented Plan B of my research proposal based on remote semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with online journalists and vaccine-hesitant parents. But due to personal reasons, I needed to return to the Philippines in February 2021—one month before I began my remote fieldwork. So, I was literally “on-site” but still doing remote fieldwork because COVID-related restrictions affected almost every facet of everyday life. I sought a formal request from my university to study outside Christchurch for eight months before returning home, having thought that the pandemic would be over in six months. But I was proven wrong! I was only able to return to Aotearoa New Zealand, last April 2022, and even then, there is still the Omicron wave on its shores.

Despite these challenges, I am very thankful to MFAT and DevNet for their very generous funding support and their highly accommodating staff for still allowing me to submit the final award requirements one year after finishing my remote fieldwork.”

Ka nui te mihi. Maraming salamat.