The Roles of Information Valence, Media Literacy and Perceived Information Quality on the Association Between Frequent Social Media Exposure and COVID-19 Vaccination Intention

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the associations between frequent exposure to positive/negative information about vaccine efficacy/safety on social media and intention of COVID-19 vaccination, and to test if media literacy and perceived information quality would moderate such associations. Design: A multi-city cross-sectional survey. Setting: At five universities in different regions of China. Subjects: 6922 university students (a response rate of 72.3%). Measures: frequency of exposure to social media information about COVID-19 vaccination, media literacy, perceived information quality, intention of COVID-19 vaccination, and sociodemographic characteristics. Analysis: Logistic regression analysis was conducted to test main and interaction effects. Results: Higher exposure to positive information about vaccine efficacy (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.30, P <.001) and vaccine safety (AOR = 1.27, P <.001) were positively associated with vaccination intention. No significant associations were shown between exposure to negative information about vaccine efficacy/safety and vaccination intention. Higher net exposure to negative vs positive information was negatively associated with vaccination intention (AOR =.82, P <.001). High media literacy was further found to attenuate the effect of negative information exposure and strengthen that of positive information exposure. Perceived information quality was not a significant moderator. Conclusion: The valence of social media information regarding the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines and individuals’ media literacy jointly shaped COVID-19 vaccination intention. The findings can inform the development of effective health promotion strategies for enhancing COVID-19 vaccination.