A quarter of all deaths, annually, are the result of infectious diseases; immunizations and the programs dedicated to preventing these ailments claim to have saved three million lives, in the world, each year (Marfe, 2007). Economically, immunizations have an influence on medical costs associated with a healthy individual and their community. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2011) believes the continued human benefits and controlled medical costs are dependent upon preventative services such as vaccines.
Media reporting often affects inoculation campaigns, fueling the public’s tendency to assume causal links when random morbidity or when a negative effect occurs after vaccination (Jefferson, 2000). In 1998, a flawed British …show more content…
Safety concerns and actual benefits have been cited by studies as primary reasons for non-vaccination (Hussain et al., 2011). The decision for the uptake of a vaccine can be influenced and grounded in environmental, cultural, social, and collective dynamics (Saint-Victor & Omer, 2013). These dynamics are formed and solidified in an individual’s knowledge, attitude, and beliefs. Factors such as media also have a predominate role influencing the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs; both positively and negatively. Influence carries properties of risk perception; individuals form and revise judgments based on the possibility of a hazardous outcome. An individual’s judgments are then weighed against the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes of close individuals within their existing networks or social dynamics. Theories, as this, often support the magnification of risk and tend to generate the same attitudes within an extended group, also known as polarization (Mussaid, 2013). According to the American Press Institute (2014), Americans reported following the news using several different formats or technologies. The most frequently utilized devices include television (87 percent), laptops/computers (69 percent), radio (65 percent), and print newspapers or magazines (61 percent). Examining television and social media’s influence may help develop alternative, effective ways of keeping …show more content…
The nature, content, and author vary across the many platforms creating loads of information produced by experts and laypeople. This relatively new addition of this type of platform, to find and participate in a health related topic, causes the line of scientific evidence to be blurred by opinion and less fact checking. Additionally, the aim of some mass media is not to provide its readers with objective information allowing informed decision-making; rather the purpose is to entertain, reach a vast number of individuals, and profitability (Guillaume & Bath, 2008). Social media allows individuals and organizations to freely and easily take advantage of health information dissemination, regardless of benefit or
Media reporting often affects inoculation campaigns, fueling the public’s tendency to assume causal links when random morbidity or when a negative effect occurs after vaccination (Jefferson, 2000). In 1998, a flawed British …show more content…
Safety concerns and actual benefits have been cited by studies as primary reasons for non-vaccination (Hussain et al., 2011). The decision for the uptake of a vaccine can be influenced and grounded in environmental, cultural, social, and collective dynamics (Saint-Victor & Omer, 2013). These dynamics are formed and solidified in an individual’s knowledge, attitude, and beliefs. Factors such as media also have a predominate role influencing the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs; both positively and negatively. Influence carries properties of risk perception; individuals form and revise judgments based on the possibility of a hazardous outcome. An individual’s judgments are then weighed against the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes of close individuals within their existing networks or social dynamics. Theories, as this, often support the magnification of risk and tend to generate the same attitudes within an extended group, also known as polarization (Mussaid, 2013). According to the American Press Institute (2014), Americans reported following the news using several different formats or technologies. The most frequently utilized devices include television (87 percent), laptops/computers (69 percent), radio (65 percent), and print newspapers or magazines (61 percent). Examining television and social media’s influence may help develop alternative, effective ways of keeping …show more content…
The nature, content, and author vary across the many platforms creating loads of information produced by experts and laypeople. This relatively new addition of this type of platform, to find and participate in a health related topic, causes the line of scientific evidence to be blurred by opinion and less fact checking. Additionally, the aim of some mass media is not to provide its readers with objective information allowing informed decision-making; rather the purpose is to entertain, reach a vast number of individuals, and profitability (Guillaume & Bath, 2008). Social media allows individuals and organizations to freely and easily take advantage of health information dissemination, regardless of benefit or