How Does Digital Media Search for COVID-19 Influence Vaccine Hesitancy? Exploring the Trade-off between Google Trends, Infodemics, Conspiracy Beliefs and Religious Fatalism

Abstract

Digital media has remained problematic during COVID-19 because it has been the source of false and unverified facts. This was particularly evident in the widespread misinformation and confusion regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. Past research suggested infodemics, conspiracy beliefs, and religious fatalism as potential threats to public COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. However, the literature is primarily void of empirical evidence associating demographic attributes with efforts to build vaccine hesitancy. Therefore, this research uses two studies: (Study 1) Google Trends and (Study 2) survey method to provide inclusive empirical insight into public use of digital media during COVID-19 and the detrimental effects of infodemics, conspiracy beliefs, and religious fatalism as they were related to building COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Using Google Trends based on popular keywords the public searched over one year, Study 1 explores public digital media use during COVID-19. Drawing on this exploration, Study 2 used a cross-sectional national representative survey of 2120 adult Pakistanis to describe the influence of potential hazards such as infodemics on public vaccine hesitancy. Study 2 revealed that infodemics, conspiracy beliefs, and religious fatalism predict vaccine hesitancy. In addition, gender moderates the relationship between infodemics and conspiracy beliefs and vaccine hesitancy. This implies that there is a dispositional effect of the infodemics and conspiracy beliefs spread digitally. This study’s findings benefit health and other concerned authorities to help them reduce religious fatalism, vaccine hesitancy, and conspiracy theories with targeted communication campaigns on digital media.