The effect of falsely balanced reporting of the autism-vaccine controversy on vaccine safety perceptions and behavioral intentions

被引：71

作者：

Dixon, Graham ^{[1
]}

Clarke, Christopher ^{[2
]}

机构：

[1] Cornell Univ, Dept Commun, Ithaca, NY 14850 USA

[2] George Mason Univ, Dept Commun, Fairfax, VA 22030 USA

来源：

HEALTH EDUCATION RESEARCH | 2013年 / 28卷 / 02期

关键词：

MMR VACCINE; MEDIA; SCIENCE; ATTITUDES; RATES; TALE;

D O I：

10.1093/her/cys110

中图分类号：

G40 [教育学];

学科分类号：

040101 ; 120403 ;

摘要：

Controversy surrounding an autism-vaccine link has elicited considerable news media attention. Despite being widely discredited, research suggests that journalists report this controversy by presenting claims both for and against a link in a relatively 'balanced' fashion. To investigate how this reporting style influences judgments of vaccine risk, we randomly assigned 320 undergraduate participants to read a news article presenting either claims both for/against an autism-vaccine link, link claims only, no-link claims only or non-health-related information. Participants who read the balanced article were less certain that vaccines are safe, more likely to believe experts were less certain that vaccines are safe and less likely to have their future children vaccinated. Results suggest that balancing conflicting views of the autism-vaccine controversy may lead readers to erroneously infer the state of expert knowledge regarding vaccine safety and negatively impact vaccine intentions.

引用

页码：352 / 359

页数：8

共 30 条

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