Social Media During the COVID-19 and Vaccine Hesitancy Among People

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 has made a big impact worldwide due to its tendency to rapidly spread. All nations across the world have taken all possible measures to minimize its effect and to bring life back to normal. Vaccine for COVID-19 has come into the market but the hunt for a better vaccine is still going on. The community is showing mixed responses towards the acceptance of the vaccine despite the unprecedented efforts that are being taken globally to develop a vaccine against COVID-19. Since the advent of COVID-19 and till the vaccine is being given to the people, social media has been on the forefront of spreading news related to COVID-19 and vaccination. Social media has created the perception among people related to every situation during the pandemic, therefore the current study reveals the impact of social media on people and their reaction to the situation. The objective of the study was to assess the influence of social media with respect to the awareness and behavioural change among people and also examining the influence on acceptance of the vaccine. The data was collected from social media platforms and using quantitative methods. It was suggested that social media can encourage positive behavioural changes and it can also be used as powerful media tool to address social concern and to remove social dogma among people with regards to vaccination. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.