A bit different to my usual, but this study (including the giant Paul Slovic among authors), examined how the ‘ideological diversity’ of media consumption predicted COVID vaccination hesitancy & trust in science.
Data from >1.6k surveys.
For background:
· “Personal vaccine hesitancy is associated with various demographic, social, and psychological factors”
· E.g. elderly, those with higher socioeconomic status, and people embedded in social networks have lower vaccine hesitancy
· “COVID-19 vaccination was highly polarized along ideological lines in the US”
· “Conservative ideology is a robust predictor of vaccine hesitancy7,8 . Conservatives have been more resistant to COVID-19 vaccinations4 , government guidance, and public health mandates20than liberals”
· “Conservatives’ heightened vaccine hesitancy may have contributed to politically polarized health outcomes, with greater COVID-19 deaths among Republicans than Democrats”
· “Conservative media in the US (e.g., Fox News) conveyed greater skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines than liberal (e.g., MSNBC) and neutral media (e.g., CBS)”
· “Lower levels of trust in science contribute to vaccine hesitancy26. During COVID-19, the degree to which people trusted science predicted more favorable attitudes toward social distancing, vaccines26,27, and skepticism of conspiracy theories”
· “The consumption of conservative media is also confounded with personal ideology. People typically consume media that aligns with their ideological identities50. Conservatives are more likely than liberals, not surprisingly, to consume conservative media like Fox New” and vice versa
· “Consuming ideologically diverse media outlets reduces the likelihood that people are exposed only to misleading information about vaccines and science”
Results
· “consuming more conservative media is negatively associated with self-reported COVID-19 vaccination”
· “Conversely, consuming a greater ideological diversity of media positively predicts COVID-19 vaccination”
· “These patterns emerge even when controlling for vaccine intentions and media consumption from two years prior, as well as personal ideology, age, education, and other individual differences”
· “regardless of personal ideology, individuals who consumed less conservative media and had a more ideologically diverse media diet were more likely to be fully vaccinated and boosted”
· “consuming more conservative media was negatively associated with trust in science, but this relationship was weaker among those with a more ideologically diverse media diet”
· “These results suggest that changes in media consumption predict vaccination behavior, over and above stable individual differences in media consumption and associated factors.”
Ref: Grant et al. (2024). Ideological diversity of media consumption predicts COVID-19 vaccination. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 28948.
Study link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-77408-4.pdf
My site with more reviews: https://safety177496371.wordpress.com
SafetyInsights.org 
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