Examining the Effect of Social Media Use on COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in China

School of Journalism and Communication, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, China.

Abstract

Public willingness to vaccinate has become an important public health issue given the vaccine hesitancy observed worldwide in recent decades. And social media is the main way of information dissemination, and will bring a great impact on people in public health events. The present paper analyzes the relationship between vaccinated Chinese people’s vaccine attitudes and social media information networks. This study aims to explore the impact of social media use on vaccine hesitancy by generating a descriptive statistical and structural model analysis of vaccine hesitancy-relevant content. In this study, the influence model between social media use behavior and vaccination willingness was constructed from three perspectives, including contact intensity, social media trust, and social media information satisfaction. Questionnaires were distributed online, and relevant data analysis software was used. In China, public enthusiasm for the covid-19 vaccine is generally high, and news on social media may have an impact on the willingness to receive the vaccine. Additionally, the Chinese government’s COVID-19 control policies make people who are not willing to actively vaccinate will be vaccinated for their daily life and work reasons. All these reflect the low correlation between vaccination and media publicity. Therefore, social media has a certain impact on COVID-19 vaccination behavior, but it is not the main factor affecting public vaccination.