Protective Face Mask-Wearing Behaviour Patterns in Turkey and Across the Globe in the Context of The Covid-19 Pandemic
Protective Face Mask-Wearing Behaviour Patterns in Turkey and Across the Globe in The Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Author(s): Nilufer Narli, Beyza Narlı Evenstadb
Subject(s): Health and medicine and law, Sociology of Culture
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: face-mask; pandemic; social contract; communication; semiotics;
Summary/Abstract: This article explores diversity in the mask-wearing behaviour patterns, including motivations for accepting or rejecting mask usage, various maskwearing practices and the types of face masks used for communicating messages. The data was collected from semi-structured interviews with 24 participants from Istanbul in 2020 summer, and the global data gathered from internet. Turkish case well represents the global trends and reveals that face mask is a semiotic cultural code, and a new medium of communication for personal, political, and commercial messages, a social contract, and a dispositif, which empowers people in many ways: diminishing anxiety of contamination and providing a medium for political statements and signalling personal and sexual preferences at a time when people face many restrictions. The data suggest that a sense of responsibility to fellow citizens, thrust in the national and international health authorities, and distancing from COVID-19 scepticism are associated with adopting a protective face-mask

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