Media Bias Matters: Understanding the Impact of Politically Biased News on Vaccine Attitudes in Social Media

TL;DR

This study investigates how politically biased news influences social media users' vaccine attitudes, revealing that moderate and hesitant individuals are more susceptible to bias, which impacts public health perceptions.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive dataset linking PBN with social media discourse and employs deep learning and causal inference to analyze user behavior and bias effects.

Findings

Moderate and hesitant users are more influenced by PBN.

Distinct behaviors are observed between different vaccine stance groups.

PBN exposure significantly affects vaccine attitudes among vulnerable groups.

Abstract

News media has been utilized as a political tool to stray from facts, presenting biased claims without evidence. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, politically biased news (PBN) has significantly undermined public trust in vaccines, despite strong medical evidence supporting their efficacy. In this paper, we analyze: (i) how inherent vaccine stances subtly influence individuals' selection of news sources and participation in social media discussions; and (ii) the impact of exposure to PBN on users' attitudes toward vaccines. In doing so, we first curate a comprehensive dataset that connects PBN with related social media discourse. Utilizing advanced deep learning and causal inference techniques, we reveal distinct user behaviors between social media groups with various vaccine stances. Moreover, we observe that individuals with moderate stances, particularly the vaccine-hesitant majority, are more vulnerable to the influence of PBN compared to those with extreme views. Our findings provide critical insights to foster this line of research.