Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Feeling Inspired And Nostalgic: Associations Between Media Context-Induced Positive Emotions And Behavioral Change Among Vaccine-Hesitant Individuals In The Late Stages Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Hue Trong Duong, Mor Yachin, Zachary Massey

Communication Faculty Publications

Campaigns to promote the COVID-19 vaccination messages to vaccine-hesitant consumers in the late stages of the pandemic are often met with resistance. This study explores a way to leverage positive emotions induced from entertainment media consumption to promote vaccination messages to this audience group. An online experiment was conducted with vaccine-hesitant consumers (N = 409). Participants viewed personally relevant entertainment music videos or mundane videos and vaccinated messages embedded in user-generated comments. Data revealed that feelings of inspiration and nostalgia induced from entertainment media consumption increased vaccination intentions via increased risk perceptions and reduced anti-vaccination attitudes. Social marketers should consider …