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Background. Vaccine hesitancy poses one of the biggest threats to global health. Informing people about the collective benefit of vaccination due to community immunity has great potential in increasing vaccination intentions. Novel communication formats are needed to increase people’s interest in and engagement with such information, boosting the intervention’s effectiveness. This research investigates the potential for virtual reality (VR) to strengthen participants’ understanding of community immunity, and therefore, their intention to get vaccinated.Methods and Findings. In this pre-registered lab-in-the-field intervention study, participants (n= 222) were recruited in a public park. They either experienced the collective benefit of community immunity in a gamified immersive virtual reality environment (2/3 of sample), or received the same information via text and images (1/3 of sample). Before and after the intervention, participants indicated their intention to take up a hypothetical vaccine for a new COVID-19 strain (0–100 scale) and belief in vaccination as a collective responsibility (1–7 scale). After the VR treatment, for participants with imperfect vaccination intention, intention increases by 9.3 points (95% CI:7.0 to 11.5, p <0.001). The text-and-image treatment increases vaccination intention by 3.3 points (difference in effects: 5.8, 95% CI: 2.0 to 9.5, p= 0.003). The VR treatment also increases collective responsibility by 0.82 points (95% CI: 0.37 to 1.27, p <0.001). A key limitation of the study is that it measures vaccination attitudes, but not behavior.Conclusions. VR is an effective tool for increasing vaccination intention, more so than text and images, by eliciting collective responsibility. The results suggest that VR interventions can be applied “in the wild” and may thus provide a complementary method for vaccine advocacy

Vaccine hesitancy poses one of the largest threats to global health. Informing people about the collective benefit of vaccination has great potential in increasing vaccination intentions. This research investigates the potential for engaging experiences in immersive virtual reality (VR) to strengthen participants’ understanding of community immunity, and therefore, their intention to get vaccinated. In a pre-registered lab-in-the-field intervention study, participants were recruited in a public park (tested: $$n = 232$$ n = 232 , analyzed: $$n = 222$$ n = 222 ). They were randomly assigned to experience the collective benefit of community immunity in a gamified immersive virtual reality environment ($$\frac{2}{3}$$ 2 3 of sample), or to receive the same information via text and images ($$\frac{1}{3}$$ 1 3 of sample). Before and after the intervention, participants indicated their intention to take up a hypothetical vaccine for a new COVID-19 strain (0–100 scale) and belief in vaccination as a collective responsibility (1–7 scale). The study employs a crossover design (participants later received a second treatment), but the primary outcome is the effect of the first treatment on vaccination intention. After the VR treatment, for participants with less-than-maximal vaccination intention, intention increases by 9.3 points (95% CI: 7.0 to $$11.5,\, p < 0.001$$ 11.5 , p < 0.001 ). The text-and-image treatment raises vaccination intention by 3.3 points (difference in effects: 5.8, 95% CI: 2.0 to $$9.5,\, p = 0.003$$ 9.5 , p = 0.003 ). The VR treatment also increases collective responsibility by 0.82 points (95% CI: 0.37 to $$1.27,\, p < 0.001$$ 1.27 , p < 0.001 ). The results suggest that VR interventions are an effective tool for boosting vaccination intention, and that they can be applied “in the wild”—providing a complementary method for vaccine advocacy.

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How do ideologically slanted media outlets react to politically relevant events? Previous research suggests that partisan media trumpet ideologically congenial events, such as opposing-party scandals, while ignoring bad news for their own side. Looking at reactions to newsworthy events on political radio—an often-partisan medium that reaches more Americans than Twitter—I find a different pattern. Based on recordings of hundreds of shows totaling two million broadcast hours, I demonstrate that regardless of their ideological leanings, political shows respond to events by dramatically increasing the attention they give to related policy issues. At the same time, liberal and conservative shows continue to frame those issues in very different ways. Instead of ignoring inconvenient events, partisan media “weave them in,” interpreting them in ways consistent with their ideological leanings. These media dynamics imply that nationally significant events can cause opinion polarization rather than convergence—becoming a divisive rather than a shared experience.