engleski

The Effect of Social Media and the Internet on Vaccination Conspiracy Beliefs - a Pilot Study

Despite the scientifi c consensus that vaccination against infec-tious diseases represents one of the most successful medial interventions in the entire human history, recent decades have seen renewed skepticism about vaccination and its effects. Among various reasons for the surge in skepticism, such as postmodern delegitimisation of science and objective knowledge and crisis of institutional trust, the advent of new media (the In-ternet) and social media are often selected as one of the important causes of the skepticism. The Internet and social media enable the spread of false information and create echo chambers wherein attitudes are strengthened in the interaction with like-minded individuals. By employing structural equation modelling the author attempts to compare the effects of the old (television) and new (social media and the Internet in general) media on vaccination conspiracy beliefs. The direct effects, as well as indirect effect (mediation through institutional and generalised trust) are compared against each other. The pilot study was based on a convenience sample of the general population of the Republic of Croatia, whereas the data were collected through the use of an online questionnaire

the Internet, social media, vaccination, institutional trust, gen-eralised trust.

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