Active in Anti-Vaccine Facebook Groups: Interpretations of Mainstream COVID-19 Coverage Through the Hostile Media Lens

Mass media plays a key role in helping audiences organize facts and make sense of uncertainty, particularly during emerging medical crises when pre-existing knowledge is limited. The COVID-19 pandemic was the first major global crisis in the modern communications era in which traditional media (TV, radio, newspapers and major news sites) and social media (especially Facebook groups) both functioned as high-reach information systems, shaping public interpretation in parallel. Social media, especially closed and semi-closed Facebook groups, became a central arena for discussion, community building, and the circulation of alternative interpretations. Against this backdrop, the current study examines how anti-vaccination activists (anti-vaxxers) who are active in anti-vaccine Facebook groups perceive mainstream media coverage of COVID-19. The study employs a qualitative design based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 70 anti-vaxxers of both genders who were active participants in anti-vaccination Facebook groups. Findings indicate that participants perceive mainstream media as advancing a biased, unidimensional narrative aligned with governmental, economic, and political interests, and as delegitimizing dissenting voices. Consistent with the hostile media effect, interviewees interpret coverage as hostile toward their community, which intensifies their tendency to avoid mainstream news and rely on Facebook group networks for validation, interpretation, and mobilization. These results highlight how crisis coverage is experienced by marginal groups and how social media group dynamics can reinforce perceptions of media hostility and deepen informational polarization.