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Vaccine Hesitancy: How PR Can Fix It

Published on March 8, 2021, at 9:04 p.m. 
by Rachel Fuller.

The COVID-19 pandemic is hard to ignore — especially because it’s happening in the 21st century, where technology permeates society and information is free-flowing.

The silver lining of the pandemic is hard to find, but one could argue that at least it’s happening in a world with adept technological advances and social media that can track case numbers, locate vaccination sites and monitor changes in one’s health that could signify a need to get tested for the virus. While these things are positive, there are also negative aspects to the presence of social media during a pandemic.

A key aspect to explore is vaccine hesitancy, defined by the World Health Organization as the “delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccine services.”

Photo by Ivan Diaz on Unsplash

Social media has become a news source for many Americans. While news organizations such as Fox News, CNN and NBC traditionally broadcast on television, they also have prominent social media presences on apps like Twitter. Instead of watching the news, those looking for updates on COVID-19 can simply check their Twitter feeds for what these news stations are saying.

The issue therein is that not only are the news sources present on social media, but so are other organizations and individuals with their own beliefs about COVID-19 and the vaccine. When so many different opinions and political beliefs are mixed, myths and rumors naturally take hold in the confusion and misinformation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention addressed this problem in an article about common misinformation and myths regarding the COVID-19 virus and vaccine.

Kathleen Bindon is an administrator for the West Alabama COVID-19 Information Group. This group has a public Facebook page with 21,000 members, and acts as a forum for information about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects in the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham, Alabama, area. The group reshares news articles and studies about the pandemic and encourages members to post their experiences with vaccination, the virus or general tips they learn that could help someone else. A key point in this group is that administrators like Bindon monitor the page and remove misleading or fictitious posts, limiting misinformation as much as possible.

“I think social media really plays a part in disseminating reassuring information based on individual anecdotes. As a researcher, an individual anecdote doesn’t mean a whole lot to me when I’m talking about whether or not something is valid, but with respect to experiences, I think it does,” Bindon explained.

In respect to vaccine hesitancy, social media plays a huge role. An article by Psychology Today explored the effectiveness of health care workers’ testimonial pictures in encouraging citizens to get vaccinated when they get the opportunity. The article referenced public relations departments within the health care system taking action and using the vaccination of their own doctors as testimony. This PR tactic allows health care organizations a chance to improve their relationships with key publics by being transparent about vaccination procedures.

Sharon Baldinelli, a communication studies instructor at The University of Alabama with a master’s degree in public health, believes that the key to understanding vaccine hesitancy is to understand human nature. She explained, “If something invokes a strong feeling, people will repeat it — especially if they are feeling out of control. Perhaps because so many people feel out of control, they are repeating misinformation and creating their own feelings of power.”

What are the solutions to the negative effects of social media on vaccine hesitancy? Baldinelli had a few ideas. She asked, “What if the messaging was changed to being about duty to society, duty to one’s community and duty to one’s family? Maybe the PR side should be about personal responsibility to the betterment of their community.”

Photo by Hakan Nural on Unsplash

Baldinelli also suggested that some vaccine locations change from hospital parking lots to churches and schools to avoid “white-coat syndrome.” Baldinelli thinks that in making this change, the environment in which vaccinations are distributed will become “a part of the PR message,” improving PR relationships between health care providers and citizens who are hesitant to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.

Bindon also offered suggestions to improve vaccine hesitancy from a PR standpoint, referencing an article in The New York Times about vaccine alarmism. The article delved into the public relations implications of ineffectual marketing of the vaccine. It noted, “Many people don’t want to get the vaccine partly because it sounds so ineffectual.”

Bindon explained that the headlines in news articles for vaccine statistics, updates and testimonies are often misleadingly negative, which causes vaccine hesitancy. She said that if the reader clicks on these “clickbait” headlines, more often than not the article will be more positive toward the vaccine than the headline suggests.

Bindon blamed the scientific community for failing to use adequate public relations strategies to instill a sense of security in the American public. She stated, “From a PR perspective, they framed it entirely incorrectly … they set the wrong tone for the message from the beginning, and I think what’s happening now is that we’re overcoming it.”

“Words matter. Craft your messages carefully,” Bindon advised.

Vaccine hesitancy forms from an accumulation of misinformation on social media, the natural human instinct to doubt, and the faults of the scientific community in public relations practices. There is much to be said for the value of public relations in the 21st century, when so many people rely on online platforms for their news and connections to the outside world.

While the issue of vaccine hesitancy will not be solved overnight, improved public relations can make strides in the right direction.

 
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