Just nine months after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 a global pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna vaccines in December 2020, followed by EUA for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in February 2021. Although achieving herd immunity through vaccinations is the greatest hope for ending the pandemic, the COVID-19 vaccination effort has been plagued by misinformation and mistrust. Given the urgency to vaccinate the population, public health officials must construct messages that encourage individuals to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine. The current study examines the impact of linguistic assignment of agency on an individual’s desire to get vaccinated. Guided by the EPPM, participants (N= 296) were randomly assigned to receive either a virus agentic message or a human agentic message. The researchers discovered that the virus agentic message resulted in a greater intention to obtain the vaccine. Further, participants who received the virus agentic message reported a stronger sense of perceived self-efficacy and perceived susceptibility. Additionally, participants who perceived the societal reaction to the pandemic to be appropriate, as well as those who knew at least one person who had died from the virus, were more likely to express an intention to get vaccinated.

This study examines the relationship between media use and support/hesitancy towards the COVID-19 vaccine. The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between social media and traditional media use and support/hesitancy attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine. We want to analyse how social and traditional media use as a news source is related to support and hesitancy attitudes. Furthermore, we want to see if media use as a news source has any relation to the trade-off attitude towards the COVID-19 vaccine. We have found a research gap in the COVID-19 pandemic and connection between social and traditional media use as a news source and support, hesitancy, and trade-off attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine. RQ 1: What is the relationship between social media use as a news source and support/hesitancy towards the COVID-19 vaccine? RQ 2: What is the relationship between traditional media use as a news source and support/hesitancy towards the COVID-19 vaccine? The method of this study is a quantitative survey regarding media use before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and support, hesitancy, and trade-off attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine. The population size is 201 Swedish citizens between the ages of 18-65. The sample was collected through a snowball sample. The study provides a theoretical framework consisting of crisis communication, misinformation, echo chambers, public opinion, and social amplification of risk. Furthermore, the study presents previous research which is similar to the study. The previous research presents some key findings such as social media use tends to increase during crises, how echo chambers can be increased by the feeling of fear, and research on attitudes towards vaccines. Previous research also presents how misinformation is being spread on social media and how the anti-vaccination movement takes advantage of the postmodern health paradigm which makes people turn to the internet with their medical problems. The study concludes that in some instances traditional media can have a positive relation to supportive attitudes and social media connects to some of the hesitant opinions towards COVID-19. / Denna studie undersöker förhållandet mellan medieanvändning och förespråkande/tveksamhet mot COVID-19-vaccinet. Syftet med denna studie är att analysera förhållandet mellan sociala medier och traditionell medieanvändning och attityder till förespråkande/tveksamhet gentemot COVID-19-vaccinet. Vi vill analysera hur de sociala och traditionella medierna som nyhetskälla är relaterade till förespråkande och tveksamhet. Vidare vill vi se om medieanvändning som nyhetskälla har något samband med avvägningsinställningen till COVID-19. Vi har hittat ett forsknings hål i COVID-19-pandemin och sambandet mellan social och traditionell medieanvändning som nyhetskälla och förespråkande, tveksamhet och avvägningsattityder till COVID-19-vaccinet. RQ 1: Vad är förhållandet mellan användning av sociala medier som nyhetskälla och förespråkande/tveksamhet mot COVID-19-vaccinet? RQ 2: Vad är förhållandet mellan traditionell medieanvändning som nyhetskälla och förespråkande/tveksamhet mot COVID-19-vaccinet? Metoden för denna studie är en kvantitativ undersökning om medieanvändning före och under COVID-19-pandemin och förespråkande, tveksamhet och avvägning av attityder till COVID-19-vaccinet. Befolkningsstorleken är 201 svenska medborgare i åldrarna 18-65. Urvalet samlades in genom ett snowball sample. Studien har ett teoretiskt ramverk som består av kriskommunikation, misinformation, ekokammare, attityder och social förstärkning av risk. Dessutom presenterar studien tidigare forskning som liknar studien. Den tidigare forskningen presenterar några viktiga resultat, såsom användningen av sociala medier tenderar att öka under kriser, hur ekokammare kan ökas av känslan av rädsla och forskning om attityder till vacciner. Tidigare forskning presenterar också hur misinformation sprids på sociala medier och hur antivaccinationsrörelsen utnyttjar det postmodern health paradigm som får människor att vända sig till internet med sina medicinska problem. Studien drar slutsatsen att traditionella medier i vissa fall kan ha en positiv relation till stödjande attityder och att sociala medier ansluter till några av de tveksamma åsikterna mot COVID-19.

Background: The implicit nature of social media information brings many advantages to realistic sentiment analysis applications. Sentiment Analysis is the process of extracting opinions and emotions from data. As a research topic, sentiment analysis of Twitter data has received much attention in recent years. In this study, we have built a model to perform sentiment analysis to classify the sentiments expressed in the Twitter dataset based on the public tweets to raise awareness of the public's concerns by training the models. Objectives: The main goal of this thesis is to develop a model to perform a sentiment analysis on the Twitter data regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and find out the sentiment’s polarity from the data to show the distribution of the sentiments as following: positive, negative, and neutral. A literature study and an experiment are set to identify a suitable approach to develop such a model. Time-series analysis performed to obtain daily sentiments over the timeline series and daily trend analysis with events associated with the particular dates. Method: A Systematic Literature Review is performed to identify the most suitable approach to accomplish the sentiment analysis on the COVID-19 vaccine. Then, through the literature study results, an experimental model is developed to distribute the sentiments on the analyzed data and identify the daily sentiments over the timeline series. Result: A VADER is identified from the Literature study, which is the best suitable approach to perform the sentiment analysis. The KDE distribution is determined for each sentiment as obtained by the VADER Sentiment Analyzer. Daily sentiments over the timeline series are generated to identify the trend analysis on Twitter data of the COVID-19 vaccine. Conclusion: This research aims to identify the best-suited approach for sentiment analysis on Twitter data concerning the selected dataset through the study of results. The VADER model prompts optimal results among the sentiments polarity score for the sentiment analysis of Twitter data regarding the selected dataset. The time-series analysis shows how daily sentiments are fluctuant and the daily counts. Seasonal decomposition outcomes speak about how the world is reacting towards the current COVID-19 situation and daily trend analysis elaborates on the everyday sentiments of people.

At the beginning of 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, known more commonly as COVID-19, created a pandemic. To slow its spread, healthcare workers were heavily encouraged to vaccinate themselves. However, nurses have been less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 than physicians. Four common themes have been associated with vaccine hesitancy among nurses, namely certain demographic variables (e.g., younger age and female sex), fears of the vaccine, conspiracy theories and news sources, and medical and psychological histories that pertain to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Thus, this study aimed to identify whether these factors apply to Florida nurses' decisions to get vaccinated after the height of the pandemic. To approach this problem, sixty-five participants were surveyed through a Qualtrics cross-sectional questionnaire. The results revealed that approximately 18.5% of participants were not vaccinated. Trends in the data revealed that older age and a postgraduate education level were associated with receiving the vaccine. Non-vaccinated participants had less confidence in the vaccine's ability to reduce the risk of hospitalization, death, and infection, and they had a stronger fear of side effects and the vaccine's rapid development. Several vaccinated and non-vaccinated participants also believed vaccine conspiracy theories, such as that vaccine safety data is falsified. Many non-vaccinated nurses also received SARS-CoV-2 information from social media or their patients, whereas many vaccinated nurses received information from government news sources or physicians. Non-vaccinated nurses also tended to have more discomfort towards hypodermic injections than vaccinated nurses. These conclusions are generalizable to the nurses of this study and may not be generalizable to all nurses. However, because nurses are on the frontlines of the healthcare field and have an essential role in informing the public about health, the results of this study can help inform vaccine education interventions should a future pandemic occur.

Abstract The Covid –19 pandemic requires sustainable behavioural changes to mitigate the spread of the infection. Thus, people are requested to comply with the recommendations given by the authorities. However, people vary with regard to how well they follow the recommendations. It is therefore of importance to understand the driving forces behind behavioural change. This study aims to investigate how people’s willingness to comply with preventive behaviour during a pandemic is related to the prosocial factor of benevolence.  A cross-sectional study was performed online on an independent sample (N=1014). A correlational analysis was performed between the variable benevolence and degree of willingness for complying with recommendations as well as for the motives for obeying or disobeying the instructions from authorities.  The result showed a significant correlation for the whole study population between how well they followed the recommendations (M = 4.16, S = 0.92) and the levels of benevolence (M = 3.58, S = 0.74) r = 0.22, p = <0.001.  Further, there was a significant correlation between altruistic motives and compliance with recommendations, including the view on taking the vaccine. Our findings add to the concept that prosocial orientation during the covid-19 pandemic in Sweden increases compliance with preventive behaviour.

Building trust in vaccines depends on understanding perceptions of socioeconomic status, historical experiences, and religious affiliations. Therefore, rhetorical audience understanding in crisis communication concerning vaccine crises is crucial to enable effective crisis management and repair confidence in vaccines. With this study, the Swedish Public Health Agency's understanding of the public, as it appears in its crisis communication in connection with Astra Zeneca's and Moderna's vaccine pause, is analysed. As trust in vaccines depends on the public's trust in the authorities communicating vaccine information, the agency's crisis communication was analysed based on William L. Benoit's Image Repair Theory to identify main crisis strategies. Additionally, the strategies were analysed with Edwin Black's theory regarding The Second Persona to determine how the public was constructed in the crisis communication. The method of this study was a close textual analysis based on Michael Leff's definition. The findings show that the authority on both occasions conducted two principal strategies: Minimization and Corrective Action. However, the strategy Provocation could only be identified in the communication regarding Astra Zeneca and the strategy Differentiation exclusively in statements concerning Moderna's vaccine pause. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the communication concerning Astra Zeneca's vaccine pause gives the impression of a calm and expectant audience. In contrast, the audience in Moderna's vaccine pause is interpreted as sceptical.

Background The administration of the COVID-19 vaccines has met with resistance and hesitance from different population groups including people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). It is concerning to know that PLWHAs are showing a higher rate of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy than the general population. The objective of this study is to synthesize the literature and determine the correlates and predictors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among PLWHA using primary and secondary data. Methods A scoping review was conducted to identify and summarize studies on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among PLWHA using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) Extension for scoping reviews. For the secondary data, the Tennessee Department of Health HIV surveillance and COVID-19 immunization dataset was retrieved from the TDH partners and a questionnaire was developed and administered to PLWHA accessing care at the Ryan White HIV Center of Excellence in Johnson City for the primary data analysis. Results There was a significant association between age group (p < 0.001), gender (p < 0.001), and region (p < 0.001) and uptake of COVID-19 vaccination. PLWHA between the ages 35-44, 45-54, and 55+ in Tennessee were 1.4, 1.8, and 2.8 times more likely more to take doses of COVID-19 vaccines respectively than those between the ages of 15-24 in the State. At the Ryan White clinic, regularity with HAART (p=0.039), uptake of at least one of the other essential vaccines for PLWHA (p=0.011), belief about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine (p< 0.001), and interference between the COVID-19 vaccine and HAART (p< 0.001) were significantly associated with the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination. Conclusion Efforts and strategies to improve the COVID-19 vaccine behavior of young PLWHA with social media-based vaccine education is imperative. Furthermore, the association between the regularity of HAART and the perception of the safety of the vaccine for PLWHA on COVID-19 vaccine uptake has implications for policy and intervention strategies.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic have ruined many people's lives. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has controlled the HIV/AIDS epidemic and COVID-19 vaccine is expected to ease confusion caused by the pandemic. However, the supply of health-resource falls far short of the demand in resource-constrained countries; thus, decision-making about resource allocation should be discussed. Botswana, as a resource-constrained country with a high prevalence of HIV, needs to construct its own framework for ART allocation. We propose an equitable framework for ART and COVID-19 vaccine allocation in Botswana based upon the egalitarian principle, which provides each individual has an equal chance of receiving them. We use a spatial mathematical model of treatment accessibility with an equity objective function, and sequential quadratic programming is used to address the nonlinear programming model. Considering Botswana's current health infrastructure, our strategy brings the most equal health outcomes. However, the disparity of accessibility still exists between rural and urban areas even from our equitable strategy. We present proposals that can increase the accessibility of rural areas using sensitivity analysis. Our work can be applied to different contexts, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

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In times of crises such as pandemics, wars or natural disasters, the responsibility of the news media increases. Previous research has shown that people in crisis tend to seek information in traditional media and find it the most reliable source. Today's media landscape has faced a new paradigm shift in the form of digitalization that has had an extensive impact on society and information is now more easily available to the public. As a result, this study will examine the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with a focus on vaccination, which has received strong media attention in Sweden. The purpose of this study is to contribute with new research by analyzing how Sweden's largest morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter and the largest evening newspaper Aftonbladet communicated regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. The study's four research questions aim to investigate whether there are any differences or similarities in how Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter communicated through source power, tabloidization, and dimensions from previous research: RQ1. How does Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter use and mention sources in their articles RQ2. How are the articles conducted in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter regarding focus dimensions (societal or individual, episodic or thematic)? RQ3. How are the articles conducted in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter regarding style dimensions (personal or impersonal, emotional or unemotional)? RQ4. Do the articles in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter have tendencies of tabloidization based on the content and headline (positive or negative, match between headline and text)? To answer the four research questions, a quantitative content analysis has been used by analyzing a total of 200 newspaper articles over a six-month period. With assistance of the tool Retriever, 100 articles from each newspaper were retrieved and produced through an unbound random selection. With help of the designed code sheet and the code book the units have been analyzed in SPSS. The theoretical framework is based on the basic principles of journalism, from event to news, agenda-setting, framing, and tabloidization. The data have been analyzed, reflected and discussed with the theoretical framework along with the previous research, the results show that Swedish media has shown a high scale of objectivity however, tendencies of tabloid permeate in both newspapers. The most important finding of the study is the indication that Dagens Nyheter, which according to previous research tends to cover hard news, instead strive against further tabloidized news coverage. / I tider av kriser så som pandemier, krig eller naturkatastrofer ökar nyhetsmedias ansvar. Tidigare forskning har visat att människor i kris tenderar att söka efter information i traditionella medier för att hitta den mest pålitliga källan. Dessutom har dagens medielandskap stött på ett nytt paradigmskifte i form av digitalisering som har haft en vidsträckt påverkan på samhället och information är nu lättare tillgänglig för allmänheten. Som ett resultat kommer denna studie att undersöka den pågående COVID-19-pandemin med fokus på vaccination, som har fått mycket uppmärksamhet i media. Syftet med denna studie är att bidra med ny forskning genom att analysera hur Sveriges största morgontidning Dagens Nyheter och den största kvällstidningen Aftonbladet kommunicerat angående COVID-19-vaccinet. Studiens fyra forskningsfrågor syftar till att undersöka om det finns några skillnader eller likheter i hur Aftonbladet och Dagens Nyheter kommunicerat genom källkraft, tabloidisering och dimensioner från tidigare forskning: RQ1. Hur använder och nämner Aftonbladet och Dagens Nyheter källor i sina artiklar? RQ2. Hur är artiklarna i Aftonbladet och Dagens Nyheter utformade gällande fokusdimensioner (samhällelig eller individuell, episodisk eller tematisk)? RQ3. Hur är artiklarna i Aftonbladet och Dagens Nyheter utformade gällande stildimensioner (personlig eller opersonlig, känslomässig eller okänslomässig)? RQ4. Har artiklarna i Aftonbladet och Dagens Nyheter tendenser till tabloidisering baserat på innehåll och rubrik (positiv eller negativ, matchning mellan rubrik och text)? För att svara på de fyra frågorna har en kvantitativ innehållsanalys använts genom att analysera totalt 200 tidningsartiklar under en sexmånadersperiod. Med hjälp av verktyget Retriever har 100 artiklar från varje tidning valts ut genom ett obundet slumpmässigt urval. Med hjälp av det utformade kodschemat och kodboken har enheterna analyserats i SPSS. Det teoretiska ramverket bygger på journalistikens grundläggande principer, från händelse till nyheter, agenda-setting, framing och tabloidisering. Datan har analyserats, reflekteras och diskuteras med hjälp av teoretiska ramen samt tidigare forskning. Resultaten visar att de svenska medierna har kommunicerat med en hög grad av objektivitet, men att tabloidiseringen genomsyrar båda tidningar. Studiens viktigaste resultat visar bland annat att Dagens Nyheter, som enligt tidigare forskning tenderar att rapportera hårda nyheter, istället lutar mot en mer tabloidisering i sin nyhetsrapportering.