Being in power or maintaining existing power is Lippmann's (1998) sought protection from the crowd, which he defined as the 'great mob', or bound to obtain his consent. With the first social structures, the governments' constant surveillance of the masses, the trust and consent of the masses to the government. created an important management problem. There are various means by which society can consent and be persuaded. The media is the most effective of these tools. The media ensures the production of consent by persuading the public with effective propaganda techniques.
In the process of media consent production, “by shaping history around a certain ideology, it enables certain things to emerge, some things not to be seen, some questions to be asked, other questions to be ignored and issues to be framed in a certain way” (Chomsky, Aljazeera 2017). One of the examples that clearly shows that the US has shaped the US government is that when the US mainstream media's broadcasts were analyzed after the 9/11 attacks, it was found that the overwhelming majority produced news that was pro-US government (Robin, 2006).
Consent production techniques of the media are also seen in the presentation form of Covid-19 vaccines. While the mainstream media revealed that their views are indisputably true and based on science, they also accused the cautious audience of compulsory vaccination of ignorance and anti-science (Gazeteduvar, 2022). This process has brought about a serious information pollution, panic atmosphere, false news and false information. According to Chomsky (2017), while the media is deliberately used as a propaganda tool by the governments, the main task of the media is propaganda.
Despite the persuasion efforts of the media, the rate of those who have never been vaccinated in the adult population in Turkey is 9% on average, according to the data of the Ministry of Health. In the population with the Covid-19 vaccine, the rate of being vaccinated decreased as the doses increased. After the first dose, the rate of being vaccinated for the third dose decreased by 43% on average (Ministry of Health, 2023). Despite the intense use of agenda setting, persuasion techniques, consent production, propaganda, fear, official bans and even coercion, what is the demographic and ideological structure of the unvaccinated mass, what are the basic values that motivate the unvaccinated mass, and trust in institutions and especially in the media. The size of their situation presents itself as an important question.
In the most general sense, this research aims to understand and get to know the mass that has never been vaccinated against Covid-19, despite the fact that the media influences the public, despite the news and guidance of the media about the need to be vaccinated constantly and intensively. Despite the persuasion efforts of the media, propaganda techniques, agenda setting and consent manufacturing processes, the demographic, ideological characteristics of the 9% of the population who have never been vaccinated against Covid-19 in Turkey, what they were affected by, their trust in the media, their perspective on the pandemic and their motivations for not being vaccinated should be examined. are among the questions. In this research, the structure of the population, which has never been vaccinated and is never affected by the media, has been tried to be scrutinized, despite the necessity and necessity of vaccination in the media, and even the information about the death of those who are not vaccinated despite the imposition of the legal circulars. It is important to recognize the mass that does not engage in media interaction and consent production and to understand their motivation to develop resistance to the media.
During the pandemic period, accusations such as ignorant, anti-scientific and religious were said about those who did not have the Covid-19 vaccine. However, as a result of this research, it was observed that the unvaccinated population had a different profile. Those who are not vaccinated against Covid-19 are mostly middle-aged, educated, semi-religious/conservative semi-secular masses who are not vaccinated against Covid-19. An educated and conscious audience stands out. It is believed that the media does not trust the media and that the media is completely biased during the pandemic process. The main motivation of this group is beyond religious reasons, but medical reasons such as forcing the vaccine, breaking the law, the plans of the global system and not trusting the vaccine. While the main source of information for this audience is some doctors and social media, they never follow television and print media clearly. This mass did not find any institution successful during the pandemic period and was not affected by official institutions.
