When someone coughs, talks, sneezes they could release germs into the air that may infect others nearby. Face masks are part of an infection control strategy to eliminate cross-contamination. Our secure, easy-to-use e-commerce site, www.
Your email address will not be published. This paradox is explained by considering humans' intrinsic social nature that favors social vs. Wearing a mask thus can turn unconscious social behavior into conscious antisocial behavior.
Hence, with full awareness that the evidence for being protected by this measure is not there, rather, I hope that by wearing a face covering, I may remind or even deter others from breaking social distancing rules. Marchiori's study 3 also suggests that distance increases with face mask wearing, thus supporting the importance of visual stimuli as a signal of danger. When people asked a blind man for the reason why was he carrying a large lantern when he traveled at night, he replied that while day and night were not different to him, carrying a lantern while walking in the night was for the sake of everyone.
For him, the lantern provided protection from other people, allowing them to avoid bumping into him. For others, carrying a lantern shone a light on them and let them walk more securely. At the same time, it is a reminder to others that we are still in a time of crisis; we need to pay highly attention to our health and life safety very seriously.
However, I notice that people with masks tend to avoid personal interaction and to decrease the time they talk to each other. They avoid looking at others. Face masks are strongly related to this implicated meaning.
In this framework, institutional health communication plays a crucial role in motivating citizens to wear face masks and use them properly i. Here, the choices of narratives by public health system officials play a crucial role. This message designed to stimulate feelings of mutual protection and solidarity among relatives, as well as among strangers. Motivation is crucial because, as we have demonstrated, a face mask can be perceived as both a physical and psychological barrier, particularly in countries where covering one's face is not a common habit.
Wearing a face mask, in fact, makes it hard to recognize if someone is smiling at you and to acknowledge non-verbal communication and emotions shared with facial expressions. Not only in these contexts, but also in relation to day-to-day activities, especially with strangers, new communication skills are necessary, such as direct eye contact 47 and body gestures.
Moreover, to communicate with those with hearing loss, special transparent masks have been proposed As the fear of infection makes us more distrustful of strangers and even of friends and family members, to achieve the social interaction we were used to before the pandemic, a new demonstration of care and affection should be conceived.
However, it is the medical-grade masks that serve as a reference point for all other varieties of face coverings. The ideological repertoires used in doing so, however, depend critically on cultural differences among societies being thus transformed, and understanding them can help contextualize the political and social dimensions of implementing this public health measure.
Such understanding can also serve as a resource for the introduction of other measures, as well as the uptake of face mask wearing in environments where it has not yet been adopted. In short, face masks are being recognized as boundary objects mediating between different individual and collective ideologies 31 and are as such artifacts with distinct politics The aim of this exploratory study was to understand face mask wearing in terms of public policies, individual behaviors and attitudes, and the collective experiences of the affected communities.
The main results of our study highlight that the societal and personal practices of wearing or not wearing face masks are influenced by 1 individual perceptions of infection risk, 2 personal interpretations of responsibility and solidarity, 3 cultural traditions and religious imprinting, and 4 the need of expressing self-identity.
First, even for individuals who might not be concerned for their personal health and safety, the wearing of a face mask often indicates a level of care and respect toward others. Second, the behaviors of others were described in the collected testimonies in terms of societal responsibilities and rituals of social interaction, highlighting the role of peers in shaping the individual behavior.
However, this leads to inherent contradictions in the behavioral change required. The interchangeability of being at risk and being a risk is particularly striking 34 — 36 , making face mask wearing both an act of self-interest as well as altruism In a similar vein, what could be perceived previously as anti-sociable behavior may now be beneficial for societal well-being protection against the pandemic and, in fact, preferred 3.
Third, our analysis highlighted that many countries, specifically those in Europe, that previously banned face coverings in public spaces are now mandating them. Face mask wearing has enjoyed varying levels of acceptance across different cultural, governmental, and religious environments; however, even in our study, we could show that the strict rules correspond to the better epidemiological situation Moreover, the voluntary policy and insufficient compliance can be perceived as less fair allowing individuals to compromise epidemiological measures, while a mandatory policy appears as an effective, fair, and socially responsible Although the mask can become a symbol of the fight against the virus or of neglect, it remains controversial who and when should have the control on the use of the symbol Fourth, the use of face masks preventing the spread of the virus is complemented or even upgraded by the use of face mask as a visual communication tool during times of lockdown and isolation providing a new way to communicate during a pandemic.
This covers both political statements in relation to states' public health measures, as well as personal expression of raising awareness, collective solidarity, or just as a part of new pandemic-related esthetic. We hope that this research will help develop new frameworks to guide a more holistic approach to understanding and enabling behavioral change among citizens, as well as enabling new models for non-verbal communication, noting specific challenges such as disability 46 , Recent articles highlight the need to develop new ways to communicate while wearing face masks through body language, particularly in terms of using eye contact to communicate emotion 52 , Also, there is an opportunity to develop new ethical frameworks to guide collective and individual decision making around face coverings.
For health policy makers, our study highlights that public messaging plays a crucial role in institutional health communication and that in-depth knowledge of various cultures and ethics concerning health habits are relevant to informing and developing reliable information resources and policies for citizens during a global health pandemic. However, this study was not without limitations. We acknowledge that our sample is yet representative of a group of intellectuals with a higher level of education, and therefore, the data cannot be generalized to the whole society.
The methods we applied for data collection and analysis, however, fit the aim of our research: to explore the broad range of personal and social meanings of mask wearing in different countries. Furthermore, our sample combines the professional and personal observations by health and other experts providing a unique interdisciplinary perspective on face masks.
Although we asked standard questions, we let people answer them in freestyle. We did not ask our authors to alter, explain, or correct their narratives in any way. As shown by the narratives, during the COVID crisis, inconsistent information may influence citizens' level of perceived risk, thus resulting in excessive fear or denial of the reality of the pandemic The credibility and the source of the information may be crucial to promoting citizen compliance and best practice of face mask wearing.
From a purely medical perspective, the effectiveness of measures to contain the spread of the virus is independent of the geographic area where these measures are implemented. From a social scientific perspective, however, individual and public health is always embedded, in particular social, cultural, and political contexts. Because of these influencing factors, health measures and devices are imbued with particular meanings that differ across countries. The specific meaning of a device, such as a mask, acquires also shapes how people deal with it and how they integrate it or not into their everyday routines and practices Ultimately, this implies that studying the personal and social meaning of mask wearing in different contexts is also necessary for the assessment of the effectiveness of face masks as a public health measure.
In conclusion, our study points out the need of an in-depth understanding of the various social, cultural, religious, and ethical considerations on health habits and attitudes in a time of pandemics. Additional knowledge about the variety of personal and collective understanding of face mask wearing is essential for designing more effective health communication during and beyond the COVID pandemic.
The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual s for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article. LM, VK, and SG: performed data acquisition, organization and analysis and wrote the first version of the manuscript. All authors approved the submission to the journal. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
We thank Navigating Knowledge Landscapes Network for providing the framework for the study. Int J Surg. The first two cases of nCoV in Italy: where they come from? J Med Virol. Marchiori, M. COVID and the social distancing paradox: dangers and solutions. Google Scholar. Cucinotta D, Vanelli M.
Acta Biomed. COVID epidemic: disentangling the re-emerging controversy about medical facemasks from an epidemiological perspective. Int J Epidemiol. World Health Organization. To mask or not to mask: modeling the potential for face mask use by the general public to curtail the COVID pandemic. Infect Dis Model. Universal masking is urgent in the covid pandemic: seir and agent based models, empirical validation, policy recommendations. Face coverings, aerosol dispersion and mitigation of virus transmission risk.
Face masks for the public during the covid crisis. Lyu W, Wehby GL. Health Aff. Liu X, Zhang S. COVID face masks and human-to-human transmission. Influenza Other Respir Viruses. Flaskerud JH. Masks, politics, culture and health. Issues Ment Health Nurs. Nat Hum Behav. Colorafi KJ, Evans B. Qualitative descriptive methods in health science research. An overview of the qualitative descriptive design within nursing research. J Res Nurs. Face coverings for covid from medical intervention to social practice.
The collection of narratives on face mask wearing written by members of scholarly association Navigating Knowledge Landscapes Network in May Mendeley Data. CrossRef Full Text. Employing a qualitative description approach in health care research. Glob Qual Nurs Res. Pavone V, Martinelli L. Cis-genics as emerging bio-objects: bio-objectification and bioidentification in agrobiotech innovation. New Genet Soc. Latour B. Drawing on discipline expertise, the professors offer new ways to think about, appreciate, and practice protective masking — currently a primary way to save lives and to contain the Covid pandemic.
Often, masks for performances have meanings that can be instantly understood by an audience that is familiar with the specific codes embedded in a particular theater form. Colors, shape, and insignias, perhaps, could be used to communicate class year, major, residence hall, mood, etc.
I trust our inventive students will have dozens of ideas for creating their own masks. And no matter what form it takes, wearing a mask during the pandemic shows that you care about protecting others. It is a tool of transformation that allows its wearers to transcend themselves, taking on timeless roles in ritual dramas, and as actors in a broader social drama. Used in dances that tell stories of creation, some of the masks have faces that dramatically transform when properly used in performance.
The cloth face coverings that most of us now wear for purely practical, protective reasons may seem symbolically insipid in comparison to sacred masks used in ritual or performance. In practice, however, today's cloth masks have come to figure into everyday interaction rituals in ways that reflect central functions that anthropologists have long associated with masking. Venetians not only wore masks during the week of Carnival, they continued to wear them through Lent and beyond at the theater, in gambling halls, in public marketplaces, and private homes.
Foreign ambassadors and state officials, including the Doge the head of the Venetian government , wore them during public ceremonies and private meetings and negotiations. Why would such extensive masking appeal in 18th-century Venice? Sometimes we do this simply through imagination, but often we do this by changing our appearance.
We play through costumes and masks in real life or through our choice of representations and apparel online, where avatars, or digital representations, can help us explore different identities. This can be empowering as it enables us to see ourselves in new ways; it can also be illuminating to see how others respond to such representations.
Right now, they are being politicized in the U. But we can and should change the meaning of this treasured item. In this pandemic era, what a mask really says is, 'I care about you. It is one that we should champion and commend. We can also have fun with masks.
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