Liminal Stigma and the Interference With the Positive Construction of Face Masks: The Case of Online Reactions to an Anti-Mask Rally

Abstract

Masks emerged as one of the few means of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. A significant minority of Americans, however, resisted the emergent mask wearing norm. This study seeks to examine the ways that constructions of mask use as an appropriate alleviation of the threat posed by COVID-19 was disrupted in public discourse. It does so by employing a qualitative content analysis of comments made on Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube in response to a mask burning rally held in Boise, Idaho in March 2021. Guided by the literature on aligning activity, this analysis identifies four of the processes by which the positive definition of mask wearing was undermined. Through fragmentation, neutralization, dilution, and displacement, the official definition of mask use was complicated by competing definitions of conduct and also contested evaluations of identities. These findings provide further understanding of the obstacles to coordination during COVID-19 and the role that aligning activity plays as an obstacle to the social construction of danger in the absence of established norms.