Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Media and Attitudes towards COVID-19 Vaccination

There are multiple determinants of Americans' perceptions toward COVID-19 vaccinations. We explore how the sources of information affect the biases they form about the effectiveness of the vaccines. Using the survey data collected by the PEW research center, we examine the association between the sources of the news from which the respondents obtain information daily and the biases they have regarding the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. Controlling for people's health conditions, occupations, race, gender, and other socio-demographic variables, we test (a) whether there is a first-order relationship between the media sources and the biases, and (b) whether partisanship is the confounder that drives this association. We hypothesize that it is not the types of news sources and biased information that cause individual perception toward the COVID-19 vaccination but rather partisanship biases influence people to self-select into certain partisan media as well as to form attitudes to the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines following the partisan opinions.