Face masks, materiality and exclusion in the COVID-19 semiotic landscape

Abstract

This study investigates the role of linguistic and semiotic resources in the construction of exclusionary discourses amidst the COVID-19 semiotic landscape. Drawing on systematic observations of and engagement with Weibo and Twitter from February 2020 to April 2021, the paper adopts a geosemiotic perspective and analyses social media posts as publicly displayed language items. This study’s findings suggest that exclusion is embedded in perpetual ideologies of distrust and xenophobia and constructed by languages and material objects drawn from both online and offline spaces. More importantly, politicised signage in the COVID-19 semiotic landscape, although ephemeral in nature, are configured to prohibit mobility and materialise playfulness. By focusing on the emplacement of exclusionary discourses at the interface between the online and the offline, this study moves beyond terrestrial semiotic landscapes to capture fleeting semiotic practices during the pandemic. The paper also argues for a semiotic assemblage perspective to account for the implications of resemiotisation in the online environment.