The web-mediated construction of interdiscursive truth(s) about the MMR vaccine A defamation case

Moreover, “the logic of defamation creates a tangled web” involving at least the plaintiff, the defendant, and a third party interacting “in a wide array of circumstances,” and quite often “a far more extensive list of individuals and entities”. This implies that potential defamatory language is inevitably mediated at interdiscursive and interdisciplinary levels. Concurrently, while the protection of reputation is central in several legal systems (Tiersma 1987), national defamation laws appear to balance competing interests differently. For instance, English libel law is generally regarded as “the most claimant-friendly in the world” (Hartley 2010: 25), thus having the effect of “silencing authors on important global matters”. Through a mediated discourse analysis (MDA) of a corpus of media texts from Deer’s website, the chapter makes a contribution to exploring the discursive potential of defaming a person’s reputation online.