Rhetoric Review Oct 2022

Masked Meanings: COVID-19 and the Subversion of Stasis Hierarchy

Genevieve Gordon Pennsylvania State University ; Ben Wetherbee University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma

Abstract

Partisan rhetoric surrounding COVID-era face-masking has reshuffled traditional stasis hierarchy, allowing the middle stases of definition and quality, which emphasize epideictic motives of cultural affirmation, to supersede conjectural questions of medical efficacy. Viral images positioning masks as metonymic approximations of “authoritarianicity” and government overreach illustrate how right-wing masking rhetoric circumvents scientific concerns, instead rooting discourse in questions of cultural essence. Science communicators, in response, must embrace the inherently tropological and epideictic dimensions of the mask and work to recode the symbol as a metonym for citizenship and personal responsibility.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2022-10-02
DOI
10.1080/07350198.2022.2109402
Open Access
Closed

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

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