THE MEDIATING ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS CONFIRMATION / TRUST IN THE EFFECT OF COVID-19 VACCINE LITERACY ON ATTITUDES TOWARDS VACCINATION

The aim of the study is to reveal the mediating role of trust in social media news in the impact of COVID-19 vaccine literacy on individuals' attitudes towards vaccines. Individuals living in the central districts of Konya constitute the scope of the study. The study was carried out between 01-28 February 2022. As the data collection tool, "The COVID-19 Vaccine Literacy Scale" was used which was developed by Biasio et al (2021) and was also adapted to Turkish by (2021) Durmuş et al; Social Media Confirmation/Trust Scale developed by Çömlekçi and Başol (2019) and The Attitudes Towards COVID-19 Vaccine Scale developed by Geniş et al. (2020) was used within the scope of the study. In the research model created in the context of the purpose of the study, COVID-19 Vaccine Literacy (X) is the independent variable, Attitudes towards the COVID-19 Vaccine is the dependent variable, and Confirmation/Trust in Social Media News is the mediator variable. Findings for the variables showed that participants' vaccine literacy (M.=3.28), social media confirmation/trust (M.=3.05) and attitudes towards vaccine (M.=3.43) were above the average. According to the correlation analysis findings, there is a weak positive and significant relationship between social media/confirmation trust and COVID-19 Vaccine Literacy (r=.248; p=.000<.001). However, no significant relationship was found between other variables. The independent variables of the study, COVID-19 Vaccine Literacy and Social Media Confirmation/Confidence, do not have a significant contribution to explain the dependent variable Attitudes towards COVID-19 Vaccine. Nevertheless, it was observed that COVID-19 vaccine literacy explained the 0.6% variance of the variation in individuals' confirmation and trust in social media news ( =,061).Confirmation/Trust in Social Media News has no mediating effect on the impact of COVID-19 Vaccine Literacy on Attitudes towards COVID-19 Vaccine. This research is important in that it contributes to the literature by examining the mediating role of social media news confirmation/trust in the impact of Covid-19 vaccine literacy, which is a type of literacy, on attitudes towards vaccines.

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