In this article, we examine the relationship between news media use and levels of psychological distance associated with COVID-19. Our findings suggest that conservative media use is associated with greater perceived distance to the disease, while less partisan news use is associated with a smaller perceived distance. Moreover, perceived distance is associated with perceived severity of COVID-19, the perceived susceptibility associated with the disease, and intentions to get vaccinated/boosted against COVID-19. As a whole, we examined a mediation process through which media use predicts distance, distance then predicts severity and susceptibility, and distance, severity, and susceptibility predict behavioral intentions.
AllcottH.BoxellL.ConwayJ.GentzkowM.ThalerM.YangD. (2020). Polarization and public health: Partisan differences in social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic. Journal of Public Economics, 191, Article 104254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104254
AnsolabehereS.SchaffnerB. F. (2014). Does survey mode still matter? Findings from a 2010 multi-mode comparison. Political Analysis, 22(3), 285–303. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpt025
5.
AshworthM.ThunströmL.CherryT. L.NewboldS. C.FinnoffD. C. (2021). Emphasize personal health benefits to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(32), Article e2108225118.
6.
BeckerM. H.MaimanL. A.KirschtJ. P.HaefnerD. P.DrachmanR. H. (1977). The health belief model and prediction of dietary compliance: A field experiment. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 18, 348–366. https://doi.org/10.2307/2955344
7.
BurakL. J.MeyerM. (1997). Using the Health Belief Model to examine and predict college women’s cervical cancer screening beliefs and behavior. Health Care for Women International, 18(3), 251–262. https://doi.org/10.1080/07399339709516279
8.
CaserottiM.GirardiP.RubaltelliE.TassoA.LottoL.GavaruzziT. (2021). Associations of COVID-19 risk perception with vaccine hesitancy over time for Italian residents. Social Science & Medicine, 272, Article 113688. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113688
9.
ChandranS.MenonG. (2004). When a day means more than a year: Effects of temporal framing on judgments of health risk. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(2), 375–389. https://doi.org/10.1086/422116
10.
ChuH.LiuS. (2021). Integrating health behavior theories to predict American’s intention to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Patient Education and Counseling, 104(8), 1878–1886. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2021.02.031
11.
ChuH.YangJ. Z. (2020). Risk or efficacy? How psychological distance influences climate change engagement. Risk Analysis, 40(4), 758–770. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13446
DrorA. A.EisenbachN.TaiberS.MorozovN. G.MizrachiM.ZigronA.SroujiS.SelaE. (2020). Vaccine hesitancy: The next challenge in the fight against COVID-19. European Journal of Epidemiology, 35(8), 775–779. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-020-00671-y
14.
FaasseK.NewbyJ. (2020). Public perceptions of COVID-19 in Australia: Perceived risk, knowledge, health-protective behaviors, and vaccine intentions. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article 551004. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.551004
15.
FeldmanL.MaibachE. W.Roser-RenoufC.LeiserowitzA. (2012). Climate on cable: The nature and impact of global warming coverage on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 17(1), 3–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161211425410
16.
FerrerR. A.KleinW. M. P.PersoskieA.Avishai-YitshakA.SheeranP. (2016). The tripartite model of risk perception (TRIRISK): Distinguishing deliberative, affective, and experiential components of perceived risk. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 50(5), 653–663. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-016-9790-z
17.
FrewerL. J.MilesS.MarshR. (2002). The media and genetically modified foods: Evidence in support of social amplification of risk. Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 22(4), 701–711. https://doi.org/10.1111/0272-4332.00062
HartP. S.ChinnS.SorokaS. (2020). Politicization and polarization in COVID-19 news coverage. Science Communication, 42(5), 679–697. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547020950735
20.
HayesA. F. (2020). Statistical methods for communication science. Routledge.
21.
HmielowskiJ. D.FeldmanL.MyersT. A.LeiserowitzA.MaibachE. (2014). An attack on science? Media use, trust in scientists, and perceptions of global warming. Public Understanding of Science, 23(7), 866–883. https://doi.org/10.1177/096366251348009
22.
HmielowskiJ. D.HutchensM. J.BeamM. A. (2020). Asymmetry of partisan media effects? Examining the reinforcing process of conservative and liberal media with political beliefs. Political Communication, 37(6), 852–868. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2020.1763525
JurkowitzM.MitchellA. (2020). Cable TV and COVID-19: How Americans perceive the outbreak and view media coverage differ by main news source. Pew Research Center.
25.
KarlssonL. C.SoveriA.LewandowskyS.KarlssonL.KarlssonH.NolviS.KarukiviM.LindfeltM.AntfolkJ. (2021). Fearing the disease or the vaccine: The case of COVID-19. Personality and Individual Differences, 172, Article 110590. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110590
26.
KimK.KimH. S. (2018). Time matters: Framing antismoking messages using current smokers’ preexisting perceptions of temporal distance to smoking-related health risks. Health Communication, 33(3), 338–348. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2016.1266579
27.
KirkpatrickA. W. (2021). The spread of fake science: Lexical concreteness, proximity, misinformation sharing, and the moderating role of subjective knowledge. Public Understanding of Science, 30(1), 55–74. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662520966165
28.
LevenduskyM. (2013). How partisan media polarize America. University of Chicago Press.
29.
LiY.LuanS.LiY.WuJ.LiW.HertwigR. (2022). Does risk perception motivate preventive behavior during a pandemic? A longitudinal study in the United States and China. American Psychologist, 77(1), 111. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000885
30.
LibermanN.TropeY. (1998). The role of feasibility and desirability considerations in near and distant future decisions: A test of temporal construal theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.5
31.
MaZ.MaR. (2022). Predicting intentions to vaccinate against COVID-19 and seasonal flu: The role of consideration of future and immediate consequences. Health Communication, 37(8), 952–961. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2021.1877913
32.
MachK. J.Salas ReyesR.PentzB.TaylorJ.CostaC. A.CruzS. G.ThomasK. E.ArnottJ. C.DonaldR.JagannathanK.KirchhoffC. J.RosellaL. C.KlenkN. (2021). News media coverage of COVID-19 public health and policy information. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), Article 220. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00900-z
33.
MerollaJ.RamakrishnanS. K.HaynesC. (2013). “Illegal,” “undocumented,” or “unauthorized”: Equivalency frames, issue frames, and public opinion on immigration. Perspectives on Politics, 11(3), 789–807. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592713002077
34.
MottaM.SteculaD. (2021). The influence of partisan media in the face of global pandemic: How news media influenced COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/xj4nq
35.
MottaM.SteculaD.FarhartC. (2020). How right-leaning media coverage of COVID-19 facilitated the spread of misinformation in the early stages of the pandemic in the U.S. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 53(2), 335–342. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0008423920000396
36.
OliverM. B.RaneyA. A.BryantJ. (Eds.). (2019). Media effects. Routledge.
37.
PelledA.LukitoJ.FoleyJ.ZhangY.SunZ.PevehouseJ. C.ShahD. V. (2021). Death across the news spectrum: A time series analysis of partisan coverage following mass shootings in the United States between 2012 and 2014. International Journal of Communication, 15, Article 20. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/13739
38.
QiaoS.TamC. C.LiX. (2021). Risk exposures, risk perceptions, negative attitudes toward general vaccination, and COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among college students in South Carolina. American Journal of Health Promotion, 36(1), 175–179. https://doi.org/10.1177/08901171211028407
39.
ReiterP. L.PennellM. L.KatzM. L. (2020). Acceptability of a COVID-19 vaccine among adults in the United States: How many people would get vaccinated?Vaccine, 38(42), 6500–6507. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.08.043
40.
SánchezA. M.ColemanC. W.LedgerwoodA. (2021). Does temporal distance influence abstraction? A large pre-registered experiment. Social Cognition, 39(3). https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2021.39.3
41.
SchuldtJ. P.RickardL. N.YangZ. J. (2018). Does reduced psychological distance increase climate engagement? On the limits of localizing climate change. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 55, 147–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.02.001
42.
ShahP.YangJ. Z.KahlorL. (2022). Psychological distance, risk perception, and affect: Texas residents’ support for carbon capture and storage. Journal of Risk Research, 26, 184–198. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2022.2116084
43.
ShihT. J.WijayaR.BrossardD. (2008). Media coverage of public health epidemics: Linking framing and issue attention cycle toward an integrated theory of print news coverage of epidemics. Mass Communication & Society, 11(2), 141–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205430701668121
TodorovA.GorenA.TropeY. (2007). Probability as a psychological distance: Construal and preferences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(3), 473–482. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.04.002
46.
TropeY.LibermanN. (2010). Construal-level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117(2), 440–463. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020319
47.
TropeY.LibermanN. (2012). Construal level theory. In Van LangeP. A.KruglanskiA. W.Try HigginsE. (Eds.), Handbook of theories of social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 118–134). SAGE.
48.
TropeY.LibermanN.WakslakC. (2007). Construal levels and psychological distance: Effects on representation, prediction, evaluation, and behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 17(2), 83–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1057-7408(07)70013-X
49.
UtychS. M. (2021). Messaging mask wearing during the COVID-19 crisis: Ideological differences. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 8(2), 91–101. https://doi.org/10.1017/xps.2020.15
50.
van StekelenburgA.SchaapG.VelingH.BuijzenM. (2021). Investigating and improving the accuracy of U.S. citizens’ beliefs about the COVID-19 pandemic: Longitudinal survey study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(1), Article e24069. https://doi.org/10.2196/24069
51.
WakslakC. J.TropeY.LibermanN.AlonyR. (2006). Seeing the forest when entry is unlikely: Probability and the mental representation of events. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 135(4), 641–653. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.135.4.641
52.
WongJ. C. S.YangJ. Z.LiuZ. (2022). It’s the thoughts that count: How psychological distance and affect heuristic influence support for aid response measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health Communication. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2022.2109394
53.
ZhaoE.WuQ.CrimminsE. M.AilshireJ. A. (2020). Media trust and infection mitigating behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA. British Medical Journal Global Health, 5(10), Article e003323. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003323
