The Influence of Media Information Sources on Preventive Behaviors in China: After the Outbreak of COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background. As announced by the World Health Organization (WHO), since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a global pandemic. In order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Chinese government carried out very strict prevention and control policy. Objective. The study aimed to explore the effect of news reports on COVID-19 vaccine from traditional media and social media on COVID-19 preventive behaviors. Methods. Adults aged between 18 and 58 years old completed an online survey reporting how they gathered media information sources regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as any details relating to risk perception, vaccine efficacy, and preventive behaviors in COVID-19 pandemic. Results. Our results showed that traditional and social media information sources both significantly and positively influenced people’s COVID-19 preventive behaviors, with the former showing a stronger effect. COVID-19 contact risk perception and vaccine efficacy awareness of media audiences partly mediate this relationship. Audiences who reported more exposing news reports on COVID-19 vaccine from the media show stronger risk perception and vaccine efficacy awareness. This increases their COVID-19 preventive behaviors. Conclusions. This study found that media information sources have an important impact on people’s COVID-19 preventive behaviors. People believe more in the news information of the mainstream media about the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, much of the news information of social media is also from the important mainstream media. Media organizations should shoulder greater social responsibility, embed the health-related benefits of COVID-19 vaccination into the values and cultural order of the whole society, find and shape a common space of meaning, and produce forms of internal coupling and value identification.