Partisan Bias in Flu News and Its Impacts on Flu Vaccination Uptake in the U.S.

ABSTRACT

Partisan gaps exist over flu vaccination. Guided by partisan media bias and motivated reasoning theories, this study examined partisan presentation bias in flu news and its impacts on flu vaccination uptake by analyzing 4150 news articles published in 48 U.S. newspapers from 2011 to 2018. Results revealed that partisan media did not utilize each news frame differently. Left-leaning media used flu news frames significantly differently and preferred to use the frames of risk population, flu prevention tips, and influenza caused deaths or illnesses stories. Neither least biased media nor right-leaning media used flu news frames significantly differently. Left-leaning media increased flu vaccine uptake among children and adults before adjusting for any confounders. After controlling for confounders, left-leaning media were no longer a significant predictor. Least biased media nor right-leaning media did not impact flu vaccine uptake among children and adults. Flu news articles published in all partisan media displayed seasonality.

KEYWORDS:

• Partisan bias
• media bias
• flu
• vaccination
• news
• newspapers
• framing
• motivated reasoning

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Hao Guo for her assistance in data analysis. I deeply appreciate the insightful comments from the editor and the reviewers.

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.