Influence of Media Framing on Cognition of COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness: The Mediating Role of Emotions.

Abstract

Objectives: From the perspective of media framing, this paper explores how factual frame and influence frame affect the cognition of vaccine effectiveness among Chinese netizens, and how emotions vary in the process and act on the cognition. Methods: We first discuss the theoretical framework and propose hypotheses. Drawing on the cognitive theory of emotions and the Pleasure- Arousal-Dominance (PAD) model, the scale and questionnaire were designed, and used to test the influence of media framing over the cognition of vaccine effectiveness by 2-factor ANOVA and Bootstrap methods. Results: The proposed hypotheses were verified. The perceived effectiveness of domestic vaccines corresponding to the factual frame group was on average 0.19 (95% CI 0.641-0.642) higher than that of the influence frame. The impact on audience cognition from reports of positive tendency was on average 0.642 (95% CI 0.641-0.642) higher than that of negative tendency. The indirect effect of the media frame on the perceived effectiveness through the mediating variable emotion was -0.0923, at the 95% level. Conclusions: The audience can understand the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines better if the factual frame with actual data and authoritative opinions is adopted, rather than reports of the effects of the vaccines on the virus, the vaccinated, and society. Moreover, media reports should be more positive to mitigate the negative emotions, stimulate the arousal of public opinions, and improve audience cognition of report contents, thereby encouraging vaccine uptake.