Negativity in online news coverage of vaccination rates in Serbia: a content analysis.

IF 4.7 Q2 MATERIALS SCIENCE, BIOMATERIALS ACS Applied Bio Materials Pub Date : 2024-07-01 Epub Date: 2022-09-13 DOI:10.1080/08870446.2022.2121962

Aleksandra Lazić, Iris Žeželj

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Abstract

Objective: This content analysis study explored how online news media communicates and frames vaccination rates and herd immunity (the effect where enough people are immune, the virus is contained).

Methods: We analyzed 160 vaccination-related news stories by nine highest-trafficked news websites in Serbia, published July-December 2017, around the start of the measles outbreak. We coded both the news story as a whole and every vaccination-rate mention (N = 339).

Results: News stories framed current vaccination rates and changes in them in a predominantly negative way (175/241 and 67/98 mentions, respectively) (e.g., "only 50% vaccinated", "fewer parents vaccinating their children"), especially when referring to the measles vaccine (202/262 mentions). A total of 23/86 of news stories mentioning vaccination rates did not provide any numerical values. Reference groups for vaccination rates were rarely specified. Out of the 32 news stories mentioning herd immunity, 11 explained the effect.

Conclusions: Even routine communication of vaccination rates can be biased through negative frames and imprecise descriptions. Lamenting low immunization rates could activate a negative descriptive social norm ("many people are not getting vaccinated"), which may be especially ill-advised in the absence of an explanation of the social benefit of achieving herd immunity through vaccination.

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关于塞尔维亚疫苗接种率的负面网络新闻报道：内容分析。

目的：本内容分析研究探讨了网络新闻媒体如何传播和描述疫苗接种率和群体免疫力（在足够多的人免疫的情况下，病毒得到控制）：本内容分析研究探讨了网络新闻媒体如何传播和框定疫苗接种率和群体免疫力（有足够多的人免疫，病毒就会得到控制）：我们分析了塞尔维亚流量最大的九个新闻网站在 2017 年 7 月至 12 月麻疹疫情爆发前后发布的 160 篇与疫苗接种相关的新闻报道。我们对新闻报道的整体内容和每次提及疫苗接种率的内容进行了编码（N = 339）：新闻报道主要以负面的方式（分别为 175/241 次和 67/98 次）（如 "只有 50%的人接种了疫苗"、"为孩子接种疫苗的父母越来越少"）来描述当前的疫苗接种率及其变化，尤其是在提及麻疹疫苗时（202/262 次）。在提及接种率的新闻报道中，共有 23/86 的报道没有提供任何数值。疫苗接种率的参照群体很少有具体说明。在提及群体免疫的 32 篇新闻报道中，有 11 篇对其效果进行了解释：结论：即使是对疫苗接种率的常规宣传，也可能因为负面的框架和不准确的描述而产生偏差。感叹免疫接种率低可能会激活一种负面描述性的社会规范（"很多人没有接种疫苗"），在没有解释通过接种疫苗实现群体免疫的社会效益的情况下，这种做法可能尤其不明智。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

ACS Applied Bio Materials Chemistry-Chemistry (all)

CiteScore

9.40

自引率

2.10%

发文量

464

期刊介绍： ACS Applied Bio Materials is an interdisciplinary journal publishing original research covering all aspects of biomaterials and biointerfaces including and beyond the traditional biosensing, biomedical and therapeutic applications. The journal is devoted to reports of new and original experimental and theoretical research of an applied nature that integrates knowledge in the areas of materials, engineering, physics, bioscience, and chemistry into important bio applications. The journal is specifically interested in work that addresses the relationship between structure and function and assesses the stability and degradation of materials under relevant environmental and biological conditions.