Crowdfunding narratives and the valuation of vaccines for COVID-19

Social media spreads information about vaccines and can be used to better understand public attitudes about them. Using American crowdfunding campaigns that mentioned COVID-19 vaccines from January 2020 to March 2021, this paper investigates public attitudes towards vaccines, specifically the perceived role vaccines could (or couldn't) play in ending the pandemic. We identified 776 crowdfunding campaigns and coded each for their aims and whether they valued vaccines as returning their community to a pre-pandemic state (utopian), helping some but not all people (cautious), and doubtful about the likely positive impacts of vaccines (skeptical). Cautious and skeptical valuations increased over time whereas utopian views declined. This paper uniquely situates attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines in the context of financial need (as characterized by the campaigners). It offers insight into the vaccine class gap in America and demonstrates the usefulness of crowdfunding campaigns for assessing public views on vaccines.(c) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Social media plays a crucial role in spreading information about vaccines. This study investigates public attitudes towards vaccines by analyzing American crowdfunding campaigns. The findings show that cautious and skeptical attitudes towards vaccines have increased over time, while utopian views have declined. The study also highlights the vaccine class gap and demonstrates the usefulness of crowdfunding campaigns for assessing public opinions on vaccines.