Abstract
Vaccine hesitancy is a widely known concept globally, regionally and in South Africa, which has received more attention during the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. The introduction of the vaccine became a significant development in the fight against the pandemic. The study was inspired by a reluctance in COVID-19 vaccination among the population, as evidenced by a very low statistical representation of the vaccinated at the peak of the pandemic. Despite the South African government’s efforts to encourage vaccination, it encountered some resistance. The study aimed to determine the role of social media among the youths since they are the most active group on social media. Guided by a qualitative research methodology, data was gathered in the purposively selected Modimolle town in Limpopo Province through face-to-face in-depth interviews with 10 youths’ participants who are social media users. The participants were selected using snowball sampling and access was gained through church youth contacts and social networks. While the participants were randomly selected, it turned out that all 10 were social media users. The participants’ vaccination statuses were organically discovered during the interviews with little effort from the researcher. The study revealed that out of the 10 interviewed participants, four were not vaccinated and to a larger extent, social media influenced their decision to either vaccinate or not due to fear of the COVID-19 virus or vaccine. The participants identified YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Twitter as common sites of information where the youths encountered social media conspiracies and high levels of COVID-19 “infodemic” that shaped their vaccine attitudes and led to vaccine hesitancy. Social media’s validity and credibility was highly questioned, and it emerged as an unauthentic source of COVID-19 related-information for the youths. Vaccine hesitancy was found to be context specific where culture and religion complemented each other and illuminated how vaccine hesitancy is shaped by socio-cultural factors. Hence the need to accommodate religion and culture in future programmes to promote positive vaccine attitudes. The participants viewed government’s decision to indirectly impose mandatory vaccination through legal vaccination regulations as a strategy rather than an oversight thus igniting a subject of contention. The contentious decision generated government mistrust as the youths questioned why the vaccine was administered under duress, which perpetuated vaccine hesitancy. The study attracts the attention of policy makers to involve the youths in future vaccination decisions because ‘they are the future’. This study recommends that policy makers should prioritise education in future vaccination programmes and encourage the youths to give no credence to social media misinformation and generate knowledge that deals with the truths and myths surrounding vaccine safety and efficacy.
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Key words: Vaccine hesitancy; social media, youths, COVID-19 lockdown, mandatory vaccination, South Africa