Media Frames and Emotional Responses to Moralized Issues: An Experimental Study of Attitudes and Views related to unvaccinated in Finland

The current pandemic has incited several highly moralized political debates. In the early stages of the pandemic those who didn’t comply with preventive behaviors, such as social distancing, were the object of strong moral condemnation by the media and fellow citizens. More recently, the question of COVID-19 vaccines has been strongly politicized and become a highly moralized issue in many countries. Even though moralized attitudes are a foundational element of political debates and conflicts, the actual processes of moralization, and the effects of news media in the process of moralization, are rather poorly understood. Previous research on the field of framing theory has demonstrated how the framing of issues affect public opinion and attitudes. According to framing theory, subtle changes in the ways news media reports on issues might influence people’s attitudes and behaviors. Framing theory suggests that episodic frames (frames that focus on a specific individual’s story) are more likely to incite emotional responses compared to thematic frames (frames that describe the issue on a general level). Also, earlier studies have shown that there is a path relationship from emotional responses to moral views. The objective of this study is to understand how different types of media frames stimulate emotional responses and lead to moralized attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines. We present a preliminary design for a survey experiment on media framing effects in the context of COVID-19 vaccines. Our data were derived from the fourth wave of Digital Age in Finland -longitudinal survey collected in December 2021 (N=545). To test the effects of framing, we randomly assigned the respondents to three different groups, which each were presented with one of the following news snippet frames that discuss the COVID-19 vaccines: neutral frame (control group), episodic frame, and thematic frame. After reading the different prompts, we measure respondents’ emotional responses and attitudes in three different dimensions: moral emotions, moral judgements, attitudes. First, we found that the episodic framing affected respondents' moral emotions toward unvaccinated. Those respondents who read the episodic framing experienced less disgust and more compassion for unvaccinated when compared to the control group and less anxiety and fear if compared to respondents with the thematic framing. Our results also showed that exposure to the thematic framing mitigates the respondents ’moral judgements when measuring the right not to be vaccinated and right to act as unvaccinated in society during the pandemic. Moreover, we found that episodic framing reduced negative moral attitudes related to the exclusion of unvaccinated from society. Finally, the mediation analysis suggested that differences in moral judgments and attitudes were indirect through the moral emotions risen with framing. Overall, our study used a unique experimental survey and provides new evidence that the framing of news has a clear impact on emotions and moral views toward unvaccinated. The news media play a key role in communicating risks during the crisis, as evidenced by the fact that the news primarily stimulates emotions, influencing the different attitudes and judgments of citizens.