Political orientation of online media sources and reporting of Covid-19 vaccine myocarditis

Political orientation may play a formative role in perceptions of risk associated with COVID-19 vaccination including vaccine myocarditis (CVM). Whether political alignment of news sources plays a role in perception of this risk is unknown. We examined the relationship between political orientation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2024-01, Vol.19 (1), p.e0296295-e0296295
Main Authors: Matsumura, Addison, Garg, Ria, Hussain, Muzna, Matsumura, Martin E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting Systems
Adverse events
Alignment
Bias
Biology and Life Sciences
Care and treatment
COVID-19
COVID-19 - prevention & control
COVID-19 vaccines
COVID-19 Vaccines - adverse effects
Diagnosis
Electronic news gathering
Health aspects
Heart diseases
Humans
Immunization
Information management
Media coverage
Medicine and Health Sciences
Myocarditis
Myocarditis - chemically induced
News
News media
Online health care information services
Orientation
Pandemics
Politics
Research and Analysis Methods
Risk factors
Risk perception
Vaccination
Vaccines
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Summary:Political orientation may play a formative role in perceptions of risk associated with COVID-19 vaccination including vaccine myocarditis (CVM). Whether political alignment of news sources plays a role in perception of this risk is unknown. We examined the relationship between political orientation of online media sites and aspects of reporting of CVM. Media sites were classified as "left" or "right" biased using the Allsides media bias rating report. For each site "COVID vaccine myocarditis" was searched in articles posted May 2021 to December 2022. Each search return was reviewed for the following: 1) Did it contain numerical data regarding CVM risk? 2) Did it report benefits of covid vaccination? 3) Did it mention covid infection-related myocarditis? Monthly reports of vaccine-related adverse events were obtained from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). A total of 487 online reports regarding CVM were reviewed. Comparison of monthly report volumes from left vs. right biased media sources demonstrated significant correlation (r = 0.546, p = 0.013). Additionally monthly reporting of CVM was temporally related to monthly volume of VAERS reporting (r = 0.519, p = 0.023). These data suggest that monthly reporting volumes were driven by availability of information regarding CVM rather than media political alignment. Left biased media sources were significantly more likely to include numerical CVM data vs. right biased sources (76.6% vs. 24.3%, p
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0296295