A case study on European online media news coverage of adolescents’ and children’s vaccination
This report summarises values expressed in online media reporting of Covid-19 vaccines for children and adolescents, between 15 November 2020 and 2 December 2021. The five countries with most reporting on the topic are Italy, Germany, Spain, Greece and France with 67.1% of the reporting over the sample period. The report discerns 10 values mentioned in news based on the personal values theory of Schwartz (1992). These values are Achievement, Benevolence, Conformity, Hedonism, Power, Security, Self-Direction, Stimulation, Tradition, Universalism. When comparing the reporting to a benchmark of random news reporting, the value of Security is dominating the news, followed by Conformity. Both are reported up to 2 and 1.5 standard deviations more than usual respectively, which is a very large increase of these values being mentioned. The values express the important concerns around safety of vaccines (Security) in relation to authorities in charge of approving those vaccines (Conformity) This shows that while Security is normally not in the focus of the news, it is much more around vaccines. Tradition and Hedonism are the lowest reported values in relative terms, significantly below the average news reporting, both being meaningfully absent in the news as vaccines for children and adolescents have not been extensively discussed by religious leaders and neither has the topic involved a lot of references to pleasure and fun.
SCHARFBILLIG Mario;
PONIZOVSKIY Vladimir;
PASZTOR Zsuzsanna;
KEIMER Julian;
TIRONE Giuseppe;
2022-12-07
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC130977
978-92-76-59149-8 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 31324 EN,
OP KJ-NA-31-324-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC130977,
10.2760/86884 (online),
