“The Right to Our Own Body Is Over”: Justifications of COVID-19 Vaccine Opponents on Israeli Social Media

Liron Inchi, Amit Rottman, Chen Zarecki

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Vaccines decrease morbidity and mortality. Nevertheless, their benefits depend on public response. During COVID-19, vaccine hesitancy and refusal were rampant, threatening public health. A thorough understanding of opponents’ arguments is required to address the diffusion of unreliable information on social media and prevent vaccine hesitancy from developing into vaccine refusal. The focus on the opponents’ viewpoints and their justifications makes the study unique. Accordingly, textual content analysis of reader comments on three health-related Israeli Facebook pages was conducted. Data collection encompassed the Israeli COVID-19 vaccination period from October 2020 to May 2022. The comments were analyzed according to the health beliefs model (HBM). We found that vaccine opponents were characterized by low perceptions of the severity of the disease combined with high perceptions of the damages of the vaccine; low perceived benefits of vaccine compliance; vaccine hesitancy and fear along with public distrust as barriers to change; and call for action to resist the vaccine and spread related anti-establishment views on the web. Hesitancy was found to develop into public distrust in the state systems and escalate into conspiracy beliefs and anti-vaccination activism. These results are important and instructive that early detection is necessary to prevent future vaccine resistance.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1012-1025
Number of pages14
JournalCOVID
Volume4
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2024
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 by the authors.

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • Israel
  • conspiracy theories
  • health behavior
  • health beliefs model (HBM)
  • public trust
  • reader comments
  • social media
  • vaccine hesitancy
  • vaccine opponents

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Immunology and Microbiology (miscellaneous)
  • Medicine (miscellaneous)
  • Infectious Diseases

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