Journal Screenshot

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2222-6990

Social Media Exposure to Health Misinformation and Effect on Vaccination Intention and Behaviour

Nur Syaheera Zaifuddin, Nor Azura Adzharuddin, Mohd Nizam Osman, Julia Wirza Mohd Zawawi

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v14-i9/22003

Open access

The proliferation of health misinformation on social media has raised significant public health concerns, particularly regarding its influence on vaccination intentions and behaviors. This study investigates the relationship between exposure to health misinformation on social media platforms and the subsequent effects on individuals' intentions to vaccinate and their actual vaccination behaviors. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, we combine quantitative survey data with qualitative interviews to provide a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon. Our findings suggest that increased exposure to health misinformation on social media correlates with higher levels of vaccine hesitancy and a decrease in vaccination rates. The study underscores the need for targeted interventions to combat misinformation and promote accurate health information on social media.

Bakir, V., & McStay, A. (2018). Fake News and The Economy of Emotions: Problems, causes,
solutions. Digital Journalism, 6(2), 154–175. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1345645
Balmas, M. (2014). When fake news becomes real: Combined exposure to multiple news
sources and political attitudes of inefficacy, alienation, and cynicism. Communication Research, 41(3), 430–454. https://doi .org/10.1177/0093650212453600
Berinsky, A. J. (2017). Rumors and health care reform: experiments in political
misinformation. British Journal of Political Science, 47(2), 241-262. doi:10.1017/S0007123415000186
Berkman, L. F., Glass, T., Brissette, I., & Seeman, T. E. (2000). From social integration to
health: Durkheim in the new millennium. Social Science & Medicine, 51(6), 843– 857. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0277-9536(00)00065-4
Best, P., Manktelow, R., & Taylor, B. (2014). Online communication, social media and
adolescent wellbeing: A systematic narrative review. Children and Youth Services Review, 41, 27-36.
Buchanan, K. (2018) Malaysia: Anti-fake News Act Comes into Force, 2018 (accessed May
11, 2022), https://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/malaysia-anti-fake-news-act-comes-into-force/.
Byrne, E., Kearney, J. B., & MacEvilly, C. (2017). The role of influencer marketing and social
influencers in public health. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 76(OCE3). https://doi.org/10.1017/s0029665117001768
Carlson, M. (2018). The Information Politics of Journalism in a Post-Truth Age. Journalism
Studies 19 (13): 1879–1888
Chin, E. S. M. (2020, January 30). Muhyiddin: enough laws to curb fake news even without
repealed act. Malay Mail. Retrieved October 1, 2021, from Malay Mail: https://www. malaymail.com/ news/ malaysia/ 2020/01/30/ muhyiddin-enough-laws-to-curb-fakenews- even- without- repealed- act/ 1832860
Dahri, A. F., & Yunus, A. M. (2018). The Effectiveness of Social Media as Knowledge
Management Sharing Tool in Government Agency: A Case Study. The International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 7, 1189-1199.
Dragomir, A. M. (2017). The fake news phenomenon in the social media era. Strategic Impact.
Volume 64/65, Issue 3/4, 54–65.
Egelhofer, J. L., Aaldering, L., Eberl, J.-M., Galyga, S., Lecheler, S. (2020). From novelty to
normalization? How journalists use the term “fake news” in their reporting. Journalism Studies 21(10): 1323–1343.
Fallis, D., Mathiesen, K. (2019). Fake news is counterfeit news. Inquiry 2019, 1–20.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2019.1688179
Farkas, J., Schou, J. (2018). Fake news as a floating signifier: Hegemony, antagonism and the
politics of falsehood. Javnost - The Public, 25:3, 298–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2018.1463047
Flynn, D. J., Nyhan, B., & Reifler, J. (2017). The nature and origins of misperceptions:
Understanding false and unsupported beliefs about politics. Political Psychology, 38(S1), 127–150. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12394
Gelfert, A. (2018). Fake news: A definition. Informal Logic, 38, 84–117.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2019.1688179
Greenberg, A., & Rosner, J. (2020). Voters are turning against Trump because of his
leadership in the pandemic. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/23/trump-leadership-coronaviruselection-biden/
Habgood-Coote, J. (2019). Stop talking about fake news! Inquiry 2019, 62, 1033–1065
https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2018.1508363
Holbert, R. L. (2005). A typology for the study of entertainment television and politics. Am.
Behav. Sci. 2005, 49, 436–453. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764205279419
Horne, B. D., & Adali, S. (2017). This just in: Fake news packs a lot in title, uses simpler,
repetitive content in text body, more similar to satire than real news. Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. https://benjamindhorne.github.io/pdfs/Horne_fakenews_NECO2017.pdf
Jacobson, J., Gruzd, A., & Hernández-García, Á. (2020). Social media marketing: Who is
watching the watchers?. Journal of retailing and consumer services, 53, 101774.
Kalsnes, B. (2018). Fake News. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication; Oxford
University Press: Oxford, UK. https://oxfordre.com/communication/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.000 1/acrefore9780190228619?fbclid=IwAR2sgsaPZpAujWem5zK3pLccXF_OZaEe173 VWynKoGZzxaCZRrJqdWiNO-M
Khaldarova, I., & Pantti, M. (2016). Fake news: the narrative battle over the Ukrainian conflict.
Journalism Practice, 10(7), 891-901.https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2016.1163237
Khan, Y., H,, Mallhi, T., H., Alotaibi, N., H., Alzarea, A., I., Alanazi, A., S, Tanveer, N., et al.
(2020). Threat of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Pakistan: the need for measures to neutralize misleading narratives. Am. J. Trop. Med., 2020; 103, 603. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.20-0654 PMID: 32588810
Kai, H. L., Izak, B., Lawrence, M., W. (2000). The Role of Multimedia in Changing First
Impression Bias. Information Systems Research 11(2): 115-136. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.11.2.115.11776
Kulkov, I., Barner-Rasmussen, W., Ivanova-Gongne, M., Tsvetkova, A., Hellström, M., &
Wikström, K. (2021). Innovations in veterinary markets: opinion leaders’ social capital. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 36(13), 1-14.
Lai, N. (2020). Enough goods, panic buying caused by fake news. Borneo Post.
https://www.theborneopost.com/2020/03/23/enough-goodspanic-buying-caused-by-fake-news/.
Lazer, D., Baum, M. A., Benkler, Y., Berinsky, A. J., Greenhill, K. M., Menczer, F., Metzger,
M. J., Nyhan, B., Pennycook, G., Rothschild, D., Schudson, M., Sloman, S. A., Sunstein, C. R., Thorson, E. A., Watts, D. J., & Zittrain, J. L. (2018). The science of fake news. Science, 359(6380), 1094–1096. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao2998
Ministry of Health Malaysia. (2020a). Mental health and psychosocial support in Covid-19. In
Guidelines Covid-19 Management No. 5/2020. https://www.moh.gov.my/moh/resources/Penerbitan/Garis%20Panduan/COVID19/A nnex_33_Mental_health_and_Psychosocial_support_23032020.pdf. Accessed 15 May 2020. 74
Ministry of Health Malaysia. (2020b). Pengecualian Caj Perubatan Kepada Pesakit Warga
Asing Yang Dijangkititi 2019-Ncov.
https://www.moh.gov.my/index.php/database_stores/attach_download/312/375.
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1st ed.). Signet Books.
Mohamad, E., Sern, T. J., Ajis, S. Z. M., Hamzah, M. R., Ayub, S. H., Sakti, A. M. T., & Azlan, A. A. (2022). Exposure to Misinformation, Risk Perception, and Confidence towards the Government as Factors Influencing Negative Attitudes towards COVID-19 Vaccination in Malaysia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health/International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(22), 14623. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192214623
Murty, M. (2017). Be wary of fake news, Najib tells social media users. Free Malaysia Today.
Rodrigues, F., Ziadé, N., Jatuworapruk, K., Caballero-Uribe, C. V., Khursheed, T., & Gupta,
L. (2023). The Impact of social media on vaccination: A Narrative review. Journal of Korean Medical Science/Journal of Korean Medical Science, 38(40). https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2023.38.e326
Shu, K., Sliva, A., Wang, S., Tang, J., Liu, H. (2017). Fake news detection on social media: A data
mining perspective. ACM SIGKDD Explor. Newsl. 19, 22–36.
Tandoc, E. C. J., Lim, Z. W., & Ling, R. (2018). Defining “fake news”. Digital Journalism,
6(2), 137–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1360143
Tandoc, E. C., Jenkins, J., & Craft, S. (2018). Fake news as a critical incident in journalism.
Journalism Practice, 13(6), 673–689. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2018.156295
Waisbord, S. (2018). “Truth is What Happens to News: On Journalism, Fake News, and
Post- Truth.” Journalism Studies 19 (13): 1866–1878
Wong, C., Tham, J., Foo, C. N., Ng, F. L., Shahar, S., Zahary, M. N., Ismail, M. N., Tan, C.
S., Hoh, B. P., Subbiah, V. K., & Lim, Y. M. (2023). Factors influencing COVID-19 vaccination intention among university students: A cross-sectional study in Malaysia. Biosafety and Health, 5(1), 37–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bsheal.2022.12.005
Wong, L. P., Alias, H., Lee, H. Y., & AbuBakar, S. (2020). The use of the health belief model
to assess predictors of intent to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and willingness to pay. Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, 16(9), 2204–2214. https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2020.1790279
Xin, M., Luo, S., She, R., Chen, X., Li, L., Li, L., Chen, X., & Lau, J. T. F. (2021). The Impact
of Social Media Exposure and Interpersonal Discussion on Intention of COVID-19 Vaccination among Nurses. Vaccines, 9(10), 1204. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9101204

Zaifuddin, N. S., Adzharuddin, N. A., Osman, M. N., & Zawawi, J. W. M. (2024). Social Media Exposure to Health Misinformation and Effect on Vaccination Intention and Behaviour. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 14(9), 672–680.