The Media And Masks: A Confusing Narrative For Americans

The 1968 research on agenda setting by McCombs and Shaw is informative in understanding the current debate about the use of the mask. Agenda setting theory suggested that media messages influence the public agenda which in turn can shape behavior. As a lesson for the future, it is useful to note that mainstream media has set a public agenda where Americans are confused and divided about the use of the mask. This situation can be especially dangerous since much of America is now going through a phased reopening and a consistent and clear message is urgently needed which according to the Center for Disease Control is: “Wear a face covering to help protect others in case you’re infected but don’t have symptoms.” Yet, the media has convoluted the message and made the masking of America a confusing and divisive issue.

To see how masks have been treated by the media it is useful to start at the beginning of 2020.

Consider how on January 23, when the virus was starting to become important to Americans, The New York Times asked the question, “do masks block Coronavirus?” No conclusive answer was offered, and it was just stressed that washing hands and general hygiene would be sufficient to block the virus. A similar perspective was also offered on January 24 by The Seattle Times in saying, “public health officials say there’s no need to wear face masks in the United States.” Americans were told that masks do not help, and the number of cases in the U.S. was too few to justify the use of masks. In January, Americans understood that there was no need to use masks.

This continued in February when the numbers in the U.S. were just starting to go up, and COVID-19 was no longer just a problem in Asia and Europe. Using the words of Dr. Fauci, The US News and World Report stated on February 17: “skip the masks unless you are contagious.” Even though there was no good way of knowing whether one was contagious, the mediated advice was not to use the mask. With the steep increase in the count of infections, in the second week of March, Americans were under a national emergency and the mask returned to the forefront. But no clear agenda could be set about masks. Outlets such as Reuters continued to say that health officials were, “discussing whether to recommend the general public wear face masks as a way to prevent transmission of the new coronavirus, but that it was too soon to take that step.” The public health officials in America were unsure, but the mediated narrative remained satisfied with merely reporting the confusion without attempting to delve deeper into the matter. In February and March Americans were confused, not sure what to do about the mask.

As the infection and deaths grew exponentially, on April 3, five weeks after their story in February, The US News and World Report reported that U.S. health officials are now saying: “Americans should cover their face if they have to go in public.” Granted that this instruction could perhaps have come earlier, it did finally come in unambiguous terms. However, this clear direction was not treated unequivocally by the media. Instead, it was treated more as a metaphor for a crisis in national leadership where health and politics were facing off. Rather than focusing on the fact that Americans should all be using masks, The New York Times reported on April 3: “The Trump administration remains deeply divided over whether to tell all Americans to cover their faces in public to stop the spread of coronavirus.” The media began to split the mask agenda along political lines.

This political agenda gets played out further in the public sphere when the media narrative latches on to the political opportunity offered by images such as that of Vice President Mike Pence going into the Mayo Clinic on April 28 without a mask. A segment of the media used the April 28 event as political capital to accentuate partisan imperatives while the key message—cover your face and nose in public spaces—gets masked by the ideological squabbling.

The politicization of a health agenda continued to be fueled by media commentators who broadcast videos such as the one on May 16 titled The masks are off, which shows President Donald Trump speaking without a mask while his key health officials stand in the background with masks.

Americans are now divided—some considering the mask a symbol of government intervention while others see it as the primary defense against COVID-19.

In the short history of the pandemic, Americans were never clearly told what Science reported on March 28: That the benefit of the mask “comes not from shielding the mouths of the healthy but from covering the mouths of people already infected.” The unambiguous scientific message of communal responsibility never comes front and center in the media agenda.