ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Health Communication
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2025.1529161
An In-Depth Exploration into College Students' Information Acquisition and Evaluation Behaviors during the COVID-19 Infodemic
Provisionally accepted
- 1California State University, Channel Islands, Camarillo, United States
- 2California State University, Northridge, Los Angeles, California, United States
- 3The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, Texas, United States
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In 2021, we conducted 26 focus group discussions to explore how vaccination-inclined and vaccination-hesitant U.S. college students acquired and evaluated COVID-19 vaccination information. Using thematic analysis, we found overlaps and discrepancies between the sources students used most frequently and those they trusted most. Our findings highlight the gaps between information acquisition and trust. For example, while public health agencies were among the most trusted sources, they were a less common first choice for seeking COVID-19 vaccination information. In contrast, social media constituted the least trusted source for COVID-19 vaccination information but was a primary source for information scanning. Interpersonal communication with social contacts was simultaneously reported as a most and least trusted source for vaccination information. While social contacts were perceived as benevolent, their subject expertise was often questioned, so was the impartiality of the primary source from which social contacts were perceived to have obtained their information (i.e. social media).
Keywords: COVID-19 vaccination1, infodemic2, health information seeking3, health information scanning4, trust in information sources5, distrust in information sources6, health information acquisition7, health information evaluation8
Received: 16 Nov 2024; Accepted: 25 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Kee, Villalobos, Ortiz and Lee. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Nien-Tsu Nancy Chen, California State University, Channel Islands, Camarillo, United States
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