Evaluating Intertwined Effects of Emoji and Message Framing to Vaccine Communication Strategy

Under the circumstance of continuous variation of COVID-19 virus, verified the temporariness of the vaccines made by various countries. One cannot expect permanent protection by accepting only one dose of vaccine. In order to prepare and respond to the pandemic, many countries are applying different strategies to increase vaccination rates. The WHO appeals to the world to take the vaccine booster shot for community immunity. Relevant authorities then have to provide and spread visual health messages on the booster shot to keep the public informed. This study examine how unofficial organizations can guide and persuade people to adopt relevant health actions more effectively (such as continuous vaccination) by introducing emoji with different emotional valences in different message framing. An online experiment adopted a 2 (emoji: positive versus negative) × 2 (message framing: gain framing versus loss framing) design to investigate the effects of contrary emoji on people's self-efficacy to continuously take the booster shot. In total of 240 university students were recruited to participate in this study. Within two types of message framing, the experiment simulated 4 pieces of health messages on the COVID-19 booster shot released by an unofficial organization, together with emoji of two emotional valences. The results showed that health messages with negative emoji result in stronger self-efficacy to user. Moreover, there is an interaction effect between emoji and message framing on self-efficacy. This study is intended to provide meaningful insights for health communicators, visual designers and health practitioners concerned.