Applying inoculation theory in international political campaigns: Analysing public opinion on campaign issues toward Taiwan–PRC relations

ABSTRACT There has been a rapid increase in attack politics and an inoculation approach is considered to be a promising strategy to resolve the problem. Inoculation theory posits that, through cognitive processing, the likelihood of resistance to attitude change can be enhanced by applying inoculation treatments containing threat components that motivate individuals to generate counter arguments. This study examines the efficacy of inoculation by employing inoculation strategies with a field experiment in an international context. The major hypotheses in this study were supported by empirical data. People receiving inoculation pretreatments conferred more resistance to attitude change following exposure to a political attack message. Moreover, people who had higher strength of support for candidates were more resistant to counter-attitudinal attacks. Further, this study assesses and discusses the nuances of inoculation theory and its applications, especially the implementation and potential of inoculation applications in international political campaigning.