Chua, Lynette J , and Jack Jin Gary Lee , ed. Contagion, Technology, and Law at the Limits. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2024. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 13 Aug. 2024. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781509970735>. Accessed from: www.bloomsburycollections.com Accessed on: Tue Aug 13 2024 13:38:15 Australian Eastern Standard Time Copyright © Sharyn Anleu. George Sarantoulias. Lynette J Chua, Jack Jin Gary Lee, and Contributors severally 2024. This chapter is published open access subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). You may re-use, distribute, and reproduce this work in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 4 Instruction and Information, Images and Icons Governing Through Contagion, Social Regulation and Public Health* SHARYN ROACH ANLEU AND GEORGE SARANTOULIAS Introduction The novel coronavirus (COVID-19)1 pandemic has been described as a ‘natural experiment’,2 perhaps reminiscent of ethnomethodology’s breaching experiments that disrupt and expose shared background assumptions and expectations.3 Since March 2020, the pandemic has made visible much taken-for-granted ordinary social interaction usually hidden by the busyness of daily activities and relationships.4 Given the medico-scientific understandings of the virus transmission, its control is inextricably linked with control of individuals and their social interaction * This work was supported by Flinders University CHASS (College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences) Research Themes Funding (Round 2) 2021. We deeply thank Jordan Tutton for excellent and detailed research assistance. We appreciate the comments and discussion at the workshop, Governing through Contagion: Perspectives Across Time and Space, National University of Singapore, 19–21 April 2022, and thank the organisers of that event. 1 The first case of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), known as COVID-19, in Australia was confirmed in the state of Victoria on 25 January 2020. The patient had arrived from China six days earlier. On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic. As of 21 July 2022, 9,019,965 cases of COVID-19 (including Delta and Omicron variants) have been recorded in Australia, including 11,032 deaths: Australian Government, ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19) Case Numbers and Statistics’. Available at: www.health.gov.au/health-alerts/covid-19/ case-numbers-and-statistics. 2 JC Alexander and P Smith, ‘COVID-19 and Symbolic Action: Global Pandemic as Code, Narrative, and Cultural Performance’ (2020) 8 American Journal of Cultural Sociology 263. 3 H Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology (New York, Free Press, 1984); S Stanley and others, ‘Making Something out of Nothing: Breaching Everyday Life by Standing Still in a Public Place’ (2020) 68 The Sociological Review 1250. 4 R Connell, ‘COVID-19/Sociology’ (2020) 56 Journal of Sociology 745; A Young, ‘ The Limits of the City: Atmospheres of Lockdown’ (2021) 61 British Journal of Criminology 985; A Young, ‘Locked-down City’ (2021) 17 Crime, Media, Culture 21. 74 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias and strategies that rely on ‘prevention, containment, enforcement, and education’.5 To manage and contain the spread of the virus and its variants, many governments implemented public health programmes entreating people to maintain social/physical distance, wear face masks, wash hands frequently while limiting physical mobility and mandating work and school from home. These responses generated a slew of new norms and rendered deviant/unacceptable behaviour that was previously normal, ordinary and anticipated: shaking hands, hugging, jostling in crowds, standing close in a queue. A striking characteristic of the pandemic is the reliance on visual imagery to convey information, which can also communicate emotions, such as fear, concern and anxiety. Images of the virus (created by medical illustrators) as a small crimson red ball with multiple uniform tentacles with suction cups hurtling through time and space, of graphs and bar charts showing case numbers and vaccination rates, maps illustrating hotspots, photographs of hospitals and pictures of empty streetscapes serve ‘to grasp the “essence”, the “deep meaning” of the crisis through a particular scene or moment’.6 These images are also implicated in governing by contagion.7 Responses to the pandemic generated new social norms regulating everyday, ordinary behaviour, the self, interaction and required social distancing.8 By activating emergency powers,9 governments implemented social control measures restricting individual mobility with bans on international travel, prohibiting movement across state borders, issuing ‘lock down’ or ‘stay at home’ orders and quarantine requirements and slowed interaction by limiting where people can go, the spaces they can occupy, where they can stand or sit and proscribing a range of activities and amenities.10 The emergency responses depended on advice from 5 LJ Chua and JJG Lee, ‘Governing through Contagion’ in Victor V Ramraj (ed), Covid-19 in Asia: Law and Policy Contexts (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2021) 115. 6 J Sonnevend, ‘A Virus as an Icon: The 2020 Pandemic in Images’ (2020) 8 American Journal of Cultural Sociology 451, 460. See also Young, ‘The Limits of the City’ (n 4); Young, ‘Locked-down City’ (n 4). 7 These images are also examples of the non-human and non-living components of governing through contagion. See JJG Lee and L Chua, 45(3) ‘Smallpox Vaccination and the Limits of Governing through Contagion in the Straits Settlements, 1868–1926’ (2023) Law & Policy 331–52. 8 At the outset governments referred to social distancing, a misnomer as the imperative is to remain physically apart and separate from other individuals to reduce contagion. 9 Emergency powers are special powers given to the executive in circumstances of dire threat to a community often associated with war, terrorism or natural disaster. In Australia, there are no formal powers for the Commonwealth government to declare a state of national emergency, rather each state and territory has legislation setting out the conditions for these laws to be activated. See, for example, The Emergency Management Act 2004 (SA) and the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act 2020 (SA). Most of the restrictions, internal border closures and public health policy messaging were state/territory based (not Commonwealth) and thus varied among the Australian states and territories, sometimes causing confusion and frustration for the national government. More generally, see CA Heimer and C Davis, ‘Good Law to Fight Bad Bugs: Legal Responses to Epidemics’ (2022) 18 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 1. 10 Chua and Lee ‘Governing through Contagion’ (n 5); M De Visser and P Straughan, ‘Singapore: Technocracy and Transition’ in VV Ramraj (ed), Covid-19 in Asia (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2021); M Tedeschi, ‘The Body and the Law across Borders during the COVID-19 Pandemic’ (2020) 10 Dialogues in Human Geography 178. Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 75 public health and medical experts, medical-scientific evidence, and data modelling to directly inform new regulations, often displacing the role of parliament and its law-making power.11 The prevailing biomedical view that the primary form of spreading COVID-19 is via aerosols shifted the public health focus to ventilation and masking, while the droplet-spread theory, earlier espoused, led to emphases on handwashing, frequent cleaning of surfaces12 and the widespread use of the term ‘deep cleaning’ and the availability of hand sanitizer. Social distancing became ‘a central tenet’ of many governments’ strategies to lower the risk of infection by reducing contact with infectious individuals. ‘Social distancing is now becoming a new norm and part of everyday life.’13 Another widely implemented measure to reduce the spread of COVID-19 is the use of face masks and the mandatory use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in health and care settings.14 Chua and Lee term these strategies of control as ‘governing through contagion’15 which regulates subjects’ behaviour, activities and actions, to effect certain goals or purposes, most explicitly to curtail the spread of disease. This chapter elaborates on two aspects of governing through contagion: (1) the proliferation of new social norms that deviantise previously non-problematic, even expected behaviour; and (2) the mechanisms for the communication of these new norms – as information and instructions – often in the form of simple images and icons in posters and signs that are widespread in public settings. It investigates the form and content of various signs, instructions and notices for their normative underpinnings, their advice and directives which attempt to modify and regulate diverse activities. We suggest that these signs are one thread in the complex fabric of ‘governing through contagion’ embedded in ordinary, everyday settings. We discuss several photographs of posters/signs located in publicly accessible places across Adelaide (South Australia) and Melbourne (Victoria) and their surrounding suburbs. These signs and posters anticipate that individuals will (be able and motivated to) interpret instructions correctly and have the capacity to align their behaviour with the directives and advice in a manner that enables social interaction in ordinary activities to continue with minimal disruption. The potential for disruption will vary. Ye notes that in a city such as Singapore ‘where the lack of space and proximity has been a way of life, this enforcement of social distancing between people is a big shift in civic behaviour’.16 Signs and posters conveying a raft of new norms are widespread 11 S Moulds, ‘Scrutinising COVID-19 Laws: An Early Glimpse into the Scrutiny Work of Federal Parliamentary Committees’ (2020) 45 Alternative Law Journal 180. 12 T Greenhalgh, M Ozbilgin and D Contandriopoulos, ‘Orthodoxy, Illusio, and Playing the Scientific Game: A Bourdieusian Analysis of Infection Control Science in the COVID-19 Pandemic’ (2021) Wellcome Open Research 6:126, doi: 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.16855.3. 13 B Nerlich and R Jaspal, ‘Social Representations of “Social Distancing” in Response to COVID-19 in the UK Media’ (2021) 69 Current Sociology 566–567. 14 M Thiel et al, ‘COVID Lessons from the Global South – Face Masks Invading Tourist Beaches and Recommendations for the Outdoor Seasons’ (2021) 786 Science of The Total Environment 147486, doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147486. 15 Chua and Lee (n 5) 115; Lee and Chua (n 7). 16 J Ye, ‘Ordering Diversity: Co-Producing the Pandemic and the Migrant in Singapore during COVID-19’ (2021) 53 Antipode 1895, 1905. 76 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias across cityscapes and beyond. They constitute visible components of the ‘governing through contagion’ inventory and rely on legal and medical-scientific authority as legitimacy, as well as appeals to the common good and collective wellbeing. We focus on the signs and instructions regarding mask wearing. The following section briefly examines the concept of social control in sociolegal scholarship, and then discusses the mechanisms conveying new social norms that were part of the COVID-19 pandemic public health restrictions. The use of signs and posters mandating mask wearing were embedded in the interaction order – ordinary, everyday social life – and played a role in shaping the social imaginaries, that is, shared beliefs, expectations, values and practices that influence collective perceptions of reality. Next, the chapter addresses the research design and method that relied on publicly accessible signs and posters, as photographed by the two authors, which represents the data for discussion. The chapter then outlines the eight images chosen to identify and unravel the new social expectations and the ways that information and governance become intertwined. A key conclusion relates to the requirements – conditions and resources – that underpin governing through contagion. Social Control and the COVID-19 Pandemic There are multiple dimensions of social control in the context of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Regulations take many forms and are embedded in daily life, in news reports, social media, billboards, posters on doorways in public spaces, workplaces, social clubs and other organisations. While presented as information and data, these visual displays have regulatory force that can potentially result in emotions of anxiety, fear, frustration or anger when others do not comply with instructions. They can also result in changed behaviour and desires, both in the present and the future, which align with government requirements. Although bearing the insignia of legal authority, some signs try to convey messages of civic responsibility or appeal to a sense of community. Taylor’s concept of social imaginaries refers to ‘the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations’.17 Social imaginaries should be thought of as ‘backgrounds’, which allow social life to operate, rather than as theories or ideologies.18 They are the implicit ‘common understanding that makes possible common practices and a widely shared sense of legitimacy’19 and should not be thought of as static entities or immobile structures separate from history.20 17 C Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2004) 23. Modern Social Imaginaries (n 17) 23–6. 19 Taylor (n 17) 23. 20 Taylor, ‘Modern Social Imaginaries’ (2002) 14 Public Culture 91, 106. 18 Taylor, Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 77 Rather, social imaginaries are ‘schematised in the dense sphere of common practice’ and transformed through a dialectic process.21 The social imaginary as theoretical framework helps us understand ‘normatively charged collective imaginaries as logically prior to the construction of normative principles’.22 This idea of ‘backgrounds’ resonates with Goffman’s concept of the interaction order,23 the taken-for-granted, unspoken, unconscious norms and understandings of social life that become visible when disrupted, often requiring renegotiation, repair or ‘damage control’. Goffman observes that ‘each participant enters a social situation carrying an already established biography of prior dealings with the other participants – or at least with participants of their kind; and enters also with a vast array of cultural assumptions presumed to be shared’.24 The interaction order depends on ‘shared cognitive presuppositions, if not normative ones, and selfsustained restraints’.25 As a locus of intervention – the interaction order – has two dimensions – (i) the individual body – and things for individuals to do or desist from doing – and (ii) interaction with others. Masks are not just explicitly about individuals’ hygiene but collective responsibility and the slowing of transmission. Precisely, the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated norms and rules disrupted shared understandings of bodily co-presence and face-to-face interaction. This mode of governance anticipates subjects willing to stem contagion, if necessary, by compromising their own self-interest to advance collective wellbeing because they (come to) believe that doing so is the only right and moral stance for everyone. It is also essential for the orderliness of the interaction order. Being the socially responsible subject requires self-surveillance and self-discipline. The new demands or requests, made in governing through contagion, are similar in form to other contemporary modes of governance; they are familiar and often unnoticeable.26 The pandemic also demonstrated an uneasy relationship among political leaders, authority and governance. There have been significant challenges to governments and their leaders to create and maintain authority in this time of crisis: ‘symbolic power does not necessarily follow from legal-rational [constitutional] authority’.27 For example, in South Australia, the visible leaders of the efforts to contain the pandemic were the Public Health Officer and the State Coordinator (commissioner of police), neither of whom are elected officials. In some jurisdictions tension emerged between the political/electoral authority of government leaders and the authority of public health officials and their recommendations. 21 Taylor, ‘Modern Social Imaginaries’ (n 20) 106. 22 M Steele, ‘Social Imaginaries and the Theory of the Normative Utterance’ (2017) 48 Philosophy and Social Criticism 1045, 1046. 23 E Goffman, ‘ The Interaction Order’ (1983) 48 American Sociological Review 1. 24 Goffman, ‘ The Interaction Order’ (n 23) 4. 25 Goffman (n 23) 5. 26 K Cardell, ‘From Puritans to Fitbit: Self-Improvement, Self-Tracking, and How to Keep a Diary’ in B Ben-Amos and D Ben-Amos (eds), The Diary: The Epic of Everyday Life (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2020). 27 Alexander and Smith (n 2) 264 (emphasis in original). 78 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias (See Morgan for analysis of UK leaders’ need for extra-rational power28 and Chan for discussion of trust/distrust of government in Hong Kong during the pandemic.29) Governing Through Contagion and Communicating New Social Norms Governance relies on information, instructions and directives to be communicated to subjects, or people, often accomplished through signs – for example, traffic signs, warnings, entry and exit notices, the circle with a diagonal slash to convey prohibition – as taken for granted, publicly visible forms of regulation which ‘mark, scar, and deface public spaces’.30 Official graffiti is a distinctive regulatory form and ‘consists of a great profusion of regulatory signs, notices, symbols, and instructions that figure in everyday life … [and] power is exercised in daily routines and is manifested in everyday consciousness’.31 Official graffiti invokes authority and legitimacy from multiple sources – governmental, legal, moral, medical – and entails ‘reduction of rule pronouncement to a lexicon of familiar and interchangeable icons’.32 ‘Official graffiti constructs self-regulating behavior that invokes judgments about personal character and integrity.’33 ‘The everyday reality of official graffiti only works effectively to the extent that its objects routinely engage in self-governance.’34 Central to effective governing through contagion is the interaction order, the workings of which ‘can easily be viewed as the consequences of systems of enabling conventions, in the sense of ground rules for a game, the provision of a traffic code or the rule of syntax of a language’.35 New norms conveyed in signs and posters disrupt existing shared ‘ground rules’ replacing them with different (sometimes opposite) expectations and an array of injunctions, warnings and directions. 28 M Morgan, ‘Why Meaning-Making Matters: The Case of the UK Government’s COVID-19 Response’ (2020) 8 American Journal of Cultural Sociology 270. 29 RKH Chan, ‘ Tackling COVID-19 Risk in Hong Kong: Examining Distrust, Compliance and Risk Management’ (2021) 69 Current Sociology 547. 30 J Hermer and A Hunt, ‘Official Graffiti of the Everyday’ (1996) 30 Law & Society Review 455, 456. 31 Hermer and Hunt (n 30) 457, 459. 32 Hermer and Hunt (n 30) 464. 33 Hermer and Hunt (n 30) 473. 34 Hermer and Hunt (n 30) 474–75. The extent to which the signs and norms communicated affect social interaction and individual behaviour is an empirical question. Questions about the effectiveness of such signage are beyond the scope of this chapter. Hermer and Hunt caution of the ‘need to remind ourselves of just how trivial, petty, intrusive, and unsuccessful regulation so often is’, 457. Nonetheless, Australian research suggests that perceived risk of legal enforcement and trust in authorities did not predict compliance with lockdown requirements, rather normative concerns and collective duty were more powerful determinants of lockdown decisions (K Murphy, H Williamson, E Sargeant and M McCarthy ‘Why People Comply with COVID-19 Social Distancing Restrictions: Self-interest or Duty’ (2020) 53 Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 477). 35 Goffman (n 23) 5. Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 79 Most poignantly, the face mask disrupts the interaction order which relies on facework as sources of vital information and emotion management. ‘[F]orms of face-to-face life are worn smooth by constant repetition on the part of participants who are heterogeneous in many ways and yet must quickly reach a working understanding.’36 Reaching such a ‘working understanding’ relies significantly on face-to-face interaction – and facework – including smiles, frowns, and other facial expressions – to decipher appropriate behaviour and responses.37 This loops back to Chua and Lee’s point that governing through contagion disrupts social connectedness and interaction via quarantine mandates, stay at home orders, work/school from home requirements, physical distancing and covering the face, or part of it: ‘Masks and other protective gear obstruct visual, aural, olfactory, tactile, and linguistic intimacy’.38 The coronavirus epidemic ‘has restricted ordinary F2F interaction by mandating masks and social distancing, weakening the cues ordinarily used interaction rituals’.39 ‘Looking at the other person’s facial expressions, bodily gestures, as well as hearing their tone of voice and its loudness or softness, communicates what specific emotions are being felt’, in turn affecting social interaction and social life.40 When announcing in parliament on 21 February 2022 the imminent reduction of mask wearing mandates, the then Premier of Queensland, Annastacia Palaszczuk stated: ‘Mr Speaker smiles are back. We can put our masks away.’ She also tweeted what some described as a ‘cringeworthy video’ in slow motion where she removed her mask to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s song When You’re Smiling.41 These new norms often conveyed through signs and instructions are now familiar across many social settings. In the first round of public health messaging the emphasis was on handwashing, frequent cleaning and maintaining social/ physical distance among people in public settings: shops, markets, venues and public transport.42 A second tranche of public health messaging provided instructions and requirements regarding mask wearing and checking in with QR (Quick Response) codes. Mask wearing is not just explicitly about individual hygiene and protection but encourages, even mandates, collective responsibility to slow or restrict transmission of the virus and increase community health and safety. Indeed, the face 36 Goffman (n 23) 9. Goffman, ‘On Face-Work’ (1955) 18 Psychiatry 213; EA Heerey and TSE Gilder, ‘The Subjective Value of a Smile Alters Social Behaviour’ (2019) 14 PLOS ONE e0225284, doi: 10.1371/journal. pone.0225284. 38 Chua and Lee (n 5) 127. 39 R Collins, ‘Social Distancing as a Critical Test of the Micro-Sociology of Solidarity’ (2020) 8 American Journal of Cultural Sociology 477, 478. 40 Collins, ‘Social Distancing’ (n 39) 482. 41 S McPhee and F Barton, ‘Annastacia Palaszczuk Is Roasted by Everyone for “Cringeworthy” Slow Motion Video Taking off Her Face Mask’ (Daily Mail Australia, 3 February 2022). Available at: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10540871/Annastacia-Palaszczuk-ROASTED-cringeworthy-slowmotion-video-taking-face-mask.html. 42 S Roach Anleu and G Sarantoulias, ‘Complex Data and Simple Instructions: Social Regulation during the Covid-19 Pandemic’ (2023) 59 Journal of Sociology 733. 37 E 80 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias mask ‘has become a significant object, positioned as one of the most important ways that people can protect themselves and others from infection with the novel coronavirus by acting as a barrier (however imperfect) between their breath and that of others’.43 More than a medical, preventative device, the mask has been the focus of politics, symbolic and actual resistance, compliance and enforcement efforts.44 There are also attempts to personalise the impersonal, depersonalising mask through use of different patterns on fabrics, release of masks by named fashion brands, even patterns and instructions for making one’s own bespoke mask.45 As Goffman observes, even in the most homogenising of environments, individuals tend to carve out space for variation and discrete identities.46 In other contexts, or historical moments, mask wearing or covering the face is labelled highly deviant, a symbol of resistance, indicative of unfamiliar religious or cultural traditions, obscuring identifiability, associated with criminal activity or a source of frivolity, theatre and performance. As a form and symbol of resistance, the use of masks in protests has been met with severe penalties.47 During the COVID-19 pandemic mandates against the use of masks were quickly reversed based on the medico-scientific recommendations on how to respond to the virus. An interesting phenomenon, which has emerged due to the event of the pandemic, is that the act of wearing a mask, its symbology, conveys two opposing narratives. On the one hand, the mask is seen as a sign of conformity. The act of wearing masks suggests ‘belief in medical science and a desire to protect one’s neighbor from contagion’.48 On the other hand, the mask ‘communicates oppression, government overreach, and a skepticism toward established scientific principles’.49 The plethora of new norms is often communicated though simple images and icons in posters and signs distributed across diverse environments and social settings.50 Strategies of communication rely on the compression of complex information – medico-scientific findings, epidemiological modelling and public 43 D Lupton and others, The Face Mask in COVID Times: A Sociomaterial Analysis (De Gruyter 2021) 2. 44 Cf JR Gusfield, ‘Moral Passage: The Symbolic Process in Public Designations of Deviance’ (1967) 15 Social Problems 175. See also Lee and Chua (n 7). 45 H Booth, J Cartner-Morley and S Hughes, ‘“Remember to Smile with Your Eyes”: How to Stay Safe and Look Great in a Face Mask’ The Guardian (18 July 2020). Available at: www.theguardian.com/ lifeandstyle/2020/jul/18/remember-to-smile-with-your-eyes-how-to-stay-safe-and-look-great-in-aface-mask. 46 E Goffman, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (Albany, Anchor Books, 1961). 47 Prior to COVID-19, several governments banned masks in protests and public spaces. In 2012, at the height of student protests ‘the city of Montreal banned the wearing of masks at protests, enforceable at the discretion of the police with a fine of up to three thousand dollars’. Later, in the fall of 2012, the Canadian government passed a bill ‘criminalizing mask wearing at protests, with a maximum penalty of ten years in prison’. JB Spiegel, ‘Masked Protest in the Age of Austerity: State Violence, Anonymous Bodies, and Resistance “In the Red”’ (2015) 41 Critical Inquiry 786, 786. 48 JD Ike et al, ‘Face Masks: Their History and the Values They Communicate’ (2020) 25 Journal of Health Communication 990, 990. 49 Ike et al, ‘Face Masks’ (n 48). 50 S Marshall, ‘Navigating COVID-19 Linguistic Landscapes in Vancouver’s North Shore: Official Signs, Grassroots Literacy Artefacts, Monolingualism, and Discursive Convergence’ (2021) 20(1) International Journal of Multilingualism 1–25. Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 81 health policies – into a few words and simple images.51 Indeed, some of the signage does not contain much information at all. Rather, the instructions and directives imply or assume the reader has sufficient knowledge or understanding of COVID19, its transmissibility, health consequences, mortality rates and danger to follow these rules without elaboration (or does not need that information to comply). Some of the messaging relies on text, others use signs and icons; at times the message is reduced to emojis. The images are not just pictures that provide public health information, as they are normative; they carry with them instructions for what to do (or not) and expectations that the viewer/reader will comply, even if that means modifying their behaviour, compromising immediate self-interest or doing things they would not ordinarily do or experience as inconvenient. The images, then, are components of governing through contagion. Research Design and Method To investigate the visible normative statements aiming to regulate individuals’ behaviour and activities during the pandemic, we (the two co-authors) each photographed several different posters/signs located in publicly accessible places across Adelaide (South Australia) and Melbourne (Victoria) and their surrounding suburbs. The images were easy to capture unobtrusively and did not require permission or access.52 The research relies on image-based methodology and the photographic images are the data.53 We then collected the photographs together, exchanged with each other the photographs each had taken and discussed which images to examine closely as vehicles for analysing the communication of social norms. We agreed on eight, and then in parallel we sought to disentangle the norms and assumptions about social interaction within each image, making notes that set out our reflections and interpretations. We discussed our observations and perceptions via e-mail and through the exchange of several drafts of this chapter. While the two-dimensional photographs (reproduced here) are the research data, the analysis relies on the three-dimensional signs and posters. The posters and signs are objects ‘which are culturally marked as being a certain kind of thing’54 and have biographies embedded in social contexts so that ‘social interactions involving people and objects create meaning’ and, in this context, social regulation.55 51 Roach Anleu and Sarantoulias ‘Complex Data and Simple Instructions’ (n 42). an earlier, parallel study we sought guidance from the Flinders University Social and Behavioural Sciences Ethics Committee which advised there was no need for ethical approval or photo release, given the images do not include people (27 August 2020). Each of the images are in the public domain and photographs were taken by the two co-authors. 53 S Pink, Doing Visual Ethnography (Thousand Oaks, CA, SAGE Publications, 2021). 54 I Kopytoff, ‘ The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process’ in A Appadurai (ed), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986) 64. 55 C Gosden and Y Marshall, ‘ The Cultural Biography of Objects’ (1999) 31 World Archaeology 169, 169; DL Brien, ‘Object Biography and Its Potential in Creative Writing’ (2020) 17 New Writing 377; 52 For 82 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias As objects, the posters and signs ‘become invested with meaning through the social interactions they are caught up in’.56 Thus, images or signs are data: ‘sources of concrete visual information about the abstract concepts and processes which are central to organizing everyday social life’.57 They are part of a governing/regulatory framework that seeks to influence individual human activities and collective behaviour. The relevance of the objects depends on human audiences, who interpret the information and potentially modify their behaviour and subsequent social interaction. Signs and posters anticipate that individuals will (be able to) interpret the instructions contained therein, and then have the capacity and motivation to modify their activities to enable the interaction order to continue without disruption. In addition, we rely on our own observations regarding the placement of signs and the people interacting in the various locations.58 Posters and Signs/Signage Regulating Individual Behaviour and Social Interaction The first image (Figure 4.1) is of a flyer located in the window of a building that is an entrance to a large Sunday morning fresh food market in an inner-city suburb. The design relies on eye-catching yellow as the dominant colour and, as it is placed next to the door, it is visible to all who enter. It is in the form of an A4-size flyer which has been downloaded and printed from the South Australian government website. It is not a bespoke flyer but a generic one that is used in various settings and can easily be attached to different surfaces and entrance ways. Those who pass through the doors are a heterogenous and transient public. The sign relies on text and an image to convey the social norms. The first statement of the norm takes the form of a direction: MASKS ARE MANDATORY all in capital letters. This indicates that the wearing of a mask is not discretionary, not a personal choice, but a requirement, even statutorily required. Entering the building is tantamount to complying with the instruction, a contractual relationship. The language is direct with few syllables and can be read quickly by English-speaking adults and school-age children. Interestingly, the flyer gives no information on how to wear the mask properly, or on whether there are situations when it can be removed, for example when sitting down and eating. Nor does it indicate whether everyone, including children and babies, are mandated to wear a mask. J Joy, ‘Reinvigorating Object Biography: Reproducing the Drama of Object Lives’ (2009) 41 World Archaeology 540. 56 Gosden and Marshall ‘ The Cultural Biography of Objects’ (n 55) 170. 57 M Emmison, P Smith and M Mayall, Researching the Visual (Thousand Oaks, CA, SAGE Publications 2012) 62; see also De Visser and Straughan (n 10); Marshall (n 50); LJ Moran, ‘Judicial Pictures as Legal Life-Writing Data and a Research Method’ (2015) 42 Journal of Law and Society 74. 58 Cf Collins (n 39). Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 83 Figure 4.1 Masks are Mandatory I (Photograph by Sharyn Roach Anleu: 29 August 2021) The image of the mask is the simple, widely available, single-use surgical face mask, that can be purchased in bulk. There are no instructions about proper disposal after use. The discarded disposable mask has become a ubiquitous feature polluting natural and built landscapes, beaches and oceans.59 Perhaps to soften the injunction, the next line more civilly entreats the reader to ‘please wear a mask 59 Thiel et al (n 14); see also Godden (ch 3, this volume). 84 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias before entering’ in sentence case lettering. Using ‘please’ acknowledges the reader and their emotions and perhaps their potential resistance to an autocratic directive. This is framed as a request rather than an injunction. The flyer relies on two types of legitimacy: legal/governmental and medical, though allusions to both are peripheral to the dominant message. At the bottom of the flyer is the ensign of the South Australian government, which clearly pitches this as a state-wide issue, but not necessarily a national one. Other Australian states and territories have different rules about mask wearing. This also affirms the state’s dominant role in governing through contagion. The flyer anticipates deviance, such as non-compliance, and indicates at the bottom that exemptions apply, providing details of the state health department as the place for more information. The poster gives no indication of what the exemptions are or to whom they might apply. By directing the reader to the webpage of SA Health, the anticipated exemptions are health/medical related. This suggests a technique of neutralisation; there are valid justifications for non-compliance, including an appeal to the detrimental health consequences of wearing a mask on the part of the non-compliant.60 What is especially notable is the missing information. There is no mention of the coronavirus or COVID-19. The flyer makes no connection between mask wearing and reducing the transmission of the virus; it does caution the reader they are about to enter a crowded space. There is no mention of the other activities associated with reducing contagion: social/physical distancing, washing hands, staying away if feeling unwell. There is no mention of the collective importance of mask wearing, no appeal to community responsibility, that is individual action is essential to wider collective benefit. The message is short and sharp, attention catching, without much more. The flyer makes assumptions about those entering the market and seeing the sign: perhaps they already have sufficient knowledge about COVID-19, the health risks of the disease, its contagiousness and their own moral responsibility to the community. Alternatively, the flyer may assume that market participants do not agree with the medical advice on mask wearing or would not wear a mask without requirement. The flyer does not mention sanctions for non-compliance, even though mask wearing is mandated. Enforcement comes in several forms: selfdiscipline, other shoppers or stall owners reminding people to wear their masks and official volunteers inside the market, who have undertaken the formal COVID19 Marshal Training and wear specially labelled fluoro vests, asking people to wear masks, or wear them properly, and providing a free mask to those without. Figure 4.2 is an elaboration of Figure 4.1. It continues with the first injunction but does several things that Figure 4.1 does not. It reinforces the command by providing more details: ‘all people must wear a mask’, anticipating no exception. Nonetheless, there is an implicit theoretical exception when not in the ‘physical presence of other persons’. However, ‘physical presence’ is not defined. So, it is not clear whether this is the usual 1.5 metre distance rule. 60 GM Sykes and D Matza, ‘ Techniques of Neutralization: A Theory of Delinquency’ (1957) 22 American Sociological Review 664. Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 85 Figure 4.2 Masks are Mandatory II (Photograph by Sharyn Roach Anleu: 7 September 2021. Entrance to a swimming pool) The flyer then provides a mix of official graffiti, including the familiar circle with the diagonal slash, and text to elaborate proper mask wearing and disposal. These are designed as a series of six steps. These steps provide hygiene information – washing hands, not touching the mask – as well as technical advice about mask fitting – it is to completely cover the lower face and not hang around the neck or sit under the nose. The six points are informational and normative. It is deviant 86 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias not to wear the mask properly. It states explicitly that single-use masks are rubbish and not recyclable, and responsible disposal means placing it in a rubbish bin. Again, the acknowledgement of the authority source is peripheral and there is no mention of COVID-19 or the enforcement of these rules. There is no explanation of why people ‘must wear a mask’. Perhaps as these are the second tranche of posters and signs relating to the pandemic, it is assumed that everyone will already know and understand the reasoning and comply without anything further, especially as coronavirus-specific rules and regulations that disrupt social interaction are no longer new. Anyone who has been in a public setting will recognise that very few if anyone complies exactly with these instructions. Collins noted in the US context that ‘effective, or not, wearing masks now became a social marker of joining the effort against the epidemic, along with keeping 6 feet away from other people’.61 Compared with injunctions to remain physically apart, wash hands frequently, cover coughs and adopt general hygiene practices, mask wearing is more intrusive, and requires more effort: acquiring a mask, having it ready, remembering to bring it and wearing it properly. Mandatory mask use is a blatant incursion into daily social life and disrupts personal face-to-face interaction. The simple, declaratory wording in these flyers suggests they anticipate non-compliance or resistance to mask wearing.62 Highlighting the word ‘mandatory’ conveys a strong instruction and legal requirement regardless of individuals’ instrumental or moral/normative motivations. The word mandatory might also imply enforcement by agents of social control; however, most of the signs rely on self-enforcement or peerenforcement by others in the same setting, including employees. Figure 4.3 provides an image of a movable sign at the front of a daily fruit and vegetable market which also includes small cafes and restaurants. The mask wearing instruction is almost an add on to the main instruction – the check in procedure. The sign provides a large QR (Quick Response) code, essential for contact tracing, one of the pillars of the COVID-19 public health response, then sets out the four steps for checking in. It immediately reassures the viewer/ reader that checking in ‘is quick and easy’, thus anticipating questions such as: How long will this take? Can I do this without assistance? Or conclusions such as: I don’t have time to do this; I’m not doing this because it is too complicated. The poster underscores the technological response to COVID-19 – the reliance on smart phones and QR codes: ‘ Technology underwrites much of the pandemic management framework.’63 What it does not refer to is the capacity of the QR codes to amass very large quantities of data about individuals’ movements and whereabouts. The poster includes a reminder and reiteration of the injunctions that have been part of the COVID-19 response since the outset – and frequent 61 Collins (n 39) 483. and Chua (n 7). 63 Ye (n 16) 1905. 62 Lee Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 87 Figure 4.3 COVID-19-Safe Check In (Photograph by Sharyn Roach Anleu: 30 July 2021. Entrance to a city food market) in the first tranche of public health signs and posters – to stay away if unwell, maintain physical social distancing and regularly clean hands. The poster emphasises following the directions, which are outlined in a series of steps, and that is explicitly stated in the part that deals with masks: ‘Please ensure you are wearing a mask as per the SA Government directions …’. Here 88 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias Figure 4.4 How to Wear a Face Mask (Photograph by George Sarantoulias: 31 December 2021. A Greek Orthodox Church) there is neither appeal to the collective; nor to the health and wellbeing of others, nor to the market community.64 It was relatively unusual to see signs that provide details on correct mask wearing. The sign in Figure 4.4, as with many others, has been downloaded from a state government website rather than being a bespoke set of instructions. At the outset 64 Roach Anleu and Sarantoulias (n 42). Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 89 the poster indicates: ‘There are two types of face masks you can use: cloth masks and surgical masks. Cloth masks are made of washable fabric and can be re-used.’ The implication here is that disposable surgical masks are not multi-use and cannot be re-used. The poster explains carefully what is required when fitting a face mask and underscores the importance of washing hands and touching the mask with clean hands, thus implying that to not do so lowers the mask’s effectiveness. The poster appeals to the importance of individual behaviour in protecting the health of the community and the collective benefit: ‘Wearing a face mask protects you and your community by providing an additional physical barrier to coronavirus (COVID-19).’ The level of detail and information in this poster is in sharp contrast to that in Figure 4.1. Perhaps this is because the poster sought to stem the incidence of non-compliance by providing detailed mask wearing instructions. Often policies emerge after a problem has been identified, so the detailed instructions are a response to (anticipated) non-compliance, such as failure to wear masks or improper mask wearing. The poster provides further specification: ‘Do not allow your mask to hang around your neck.’ It seems that more information, or reiteration of information previously circulated, is an antidote to improper mask wearing. It is noteworthy that this poster, while generic, is in a Greek Orthodox Church. There are instances of religious communities disregarding the laws and regulations because of their beliefs (for example, Christ Embassy Sydney held a church service in violation of New South Wales public health orders and participants were issued with fines). This could also be an instance of policing diversity or targeting particular ethnic communities as potentially non-compliant.65 The image in Figure 4.5 was taken in front of a suburban aquatics and health club. Several aspects of this sign are ripe for analysis. First, the physical form of the sign and the way in which it has been displayed is of interest. The sign is metallic and is mounted on two metal posts suggesting that it was installed with the understanding that it will be there for an indefinite time period – such as a permanent installation. Second, at the top left-hand corner of the sign there are bold letters – a combination of lower and upper case – stating: ‘Let’s work together TO STAY SAFE’, and on the right top hand corner there is the insignia of the City of Monash, the legal authority which legitimises the instructions conveyed. The message ‘Let’s work together …’ is an indication of an appeal to the sense of community, an anticipation of bodily co-presence in a fragile interaction order and a restatement of social imaginaries as an antidote to individual self-interest. The message is completed by the upper-case script – ‘… TO STAY SAFE’ – which emphasises the reason why the sense of community and collaboration are requested. Third, the sign is not about mask wearing explicitly; it is about the importance of maintaining physical distance from other people. At the centre of the sign, it states: ‘Social 65 Ye (n 16). 90 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias Figure 4.5 Let’s work together to stay safe (Photograph by George Sarantoulias: 18 December 2021. A suburban aquatics and health club) distancing is critical. Stay 1.5 metres apart at all times. If you’re closer than the length of the sign you’re too close.’ The sign is large and made in such a way that the 1.5 metres between the two characters is explicit. The measurements have already been featured in the sign and the information has become even more simple for those reading it. Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 91 Even though the sign is not solely about mask-wearing, the two characters are wearing masks. This is done in a way that the viewer makes the connection that mask wearing is already something that they would be expected to do, mask wearing is now a given; it does not have to be explicitly stated; it is part of the social imaginary. Figure 4.6 Stop sign (Photograph by George Sarantoulias: 2 January 2022. Minimarket in a coastal town) 92 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias The image in Figure 4.6 was taken in a small coastal town, a popular destination for holidaymakers. The local shop sells provisions typically found at a supermarket and alcohol. The collage of signs is at the front entrance and it feels overwhelming when one confronts it. There is, simply put, a lot going on. Even though the installation of the signs is indicative of a feeling of anxiety or panic on the part of the individual who displayed it, there are several points of specific interest. The owners have used a STOP sign which is usually used at intersections on roads. The STOP sign, over the years, has solidified as one of the most common examples of official graffiti and, significantly, it is a sign which, if not followed, could result in dire consequences, including car accidents and fatalities. On top of the STOP sign there is an official Victorian government QR code for patrons to ‘check in’. The same QR code print out is featured in three different locations, but they all cannot be used at the same time because that would violate the physical distancing rule of 1.5 metres. Under the STOP sign a piece of paper states: ‘WE KNOW YOU ARE ON HOLIDAY BUT IF OUR STAFF GET COVID WE WILL CLOSE AND YOU’LL HAVE NO LOCAL SHOP PLEASE WEAR A MASK HAPPY NEW YEAR’ Some research suggests that individuals on holiday are in a mental space in which they are more likely to take risks and engage in inappropriate and non-conforming behaviours than they would ordinarily.66 Perhaps, underlying the message is an expectation that patrons will desist and it seeks to appeal to their rationality and self-interest. Instead of the message asking patrons to realise that conforming to the rules is essential for the wellbeing of the community, it invokes the disadvantage and inconvenience for individuals if the local shop is shut down. The primary emphasis is not the health risks of COVID-19 for the employees or the patrons, but the inconvenience that could result and detract from the holiday experience. The object represented in Figure 4.7 differs in form from the others discussed above. It is a small (five centimetres in diameter) button that can easily be pinned to clothing. It anticipates the enforcement of the requirement to wear masks in an instance when a person is not wearing one.67 66 N Uriely, Y Ram and A Malach-Pines, ‘Psychoanalytic Sociology of Deviant Tourist Behavior’ (2011) 38 Annals of Tourism Research 1051. 67 The Department of Health Services (Victoria) website stated: ‘You do not need a medical certificate stating that you have a lawful reason for not wearing a face mask. If you have a lawful reason for not wearing a face mask, you do not need to apply for an exemption or permit. If you are stopped by police in a setting where face masks are mandatory, they will ask you to confirm the lawful reason you are not Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 93 Figure 4.7 Face mask exempt sign/button (Photograph by George Sarantoulias: 30 December 2021. A Greek Orthodox Church) wearing a face mask.’ It provided a card stating: ‘I am exempt from wearing a face covering for a valid reason’ which can be downloaded, printed, and carried in a wallet, or even worn as a badge. However, it does not intimate what constitutes ‘a valid reason’. Available at: www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/ documents/202009/I-am-exempt-face-covering-Wallet-Cards-A4-PRINT-covid-19-pdf.pdf. Another government website provided minute detail of the exemptions for not wearing a face mask: Victorian Government, ‘Face Masks’ (14 July 2022). Available at: www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/face-masks. 94 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias It anticipates that the non-mask wearer will be called to account, that is to provide an explanation for their apparent deviance.68 Frequently providing accounts for apparent deviance could be very disruptive to the interaction order and frustrating for the person so called to account. The badge provides the explanation for the absence of a mask; they are ‘medically exempt’. It expresses a legitimate reason for non-compliance, a medical reason; a powerful technique that neutralises the appearance of deviance.69 It is repeated: ‘medically exempt’ appears three times and ‘exempt’ appears four times, out of a total of nine words! A second noteworthy observation is that the badge is worn; the signage has moved to the body. As it is small and relies on others being able to easily read the explanation, there must be a limit on the amount of text or number of images displayed. The badge does not display the insignia of the Australian government or any other reference to legitimate authority. The image in Figure 4.8 is taken inside a suburban Greek Orthodox Church and depicts a woman wearing a mask correctly. The writing on the sign states: ‘Thank You! For wearing your mask over your nose and mouth before entering.’ The instruction is not couched as a directive or a requirement – but as appreciation for wearing the mask properly. Nonetheless, the statement is normative; it reinforces the proper way of wearing the mask to cover the nose and mouth, thus rendering deviant other deployments of the mask, such as only over the mouth, hanging off one ear, hanging around the neck, being carried and not worn before entering. This sign does not have the insignia of a government or other legal authority. It is, however, in a space of religious worship and, as such, associated with the authority and symbolic power of the parish priest and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia. In a place of worship like an Orthodox Christian Church the space is comprised of unique practices and behaviours, among these include bowing to and kissing the icons of Christ and the various saints depicted. In the context of the transmission of COVID-19, these religious practices are redefined as high risk of virus transmission, unhygienic and thus must be curbed. Aesthetically, this photograph is very interesting as it depicts a juxtaposition of icons. The all-male religious icons contrast with the mask-wearing female image. 68 TL Orbuch, ‘People’s Accounts Count: The Sociology of Accounts’ (1997) 23 Annual Review of Sociology 455. 69 Sykes and Matza (n 60). Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 95 Figure 4.8 Thank you …. In the church (Photograph by George Sarantoulias: 30 December 2021. A (second) Greek Orthodox Church) 96 Sharyn Roach Anleu and George Sarantoulias Conclusion: Governing Contagion Through Images and Icons This chapter analyses signs regarding mask wearing and notices a shift in signs and posters away from appeals to the collective, and shared benefit, and toward directives regarding mask wearing. Instructions showing how to wear masks have resulted from the incorrect wearing of masks. At the start of the pandemic, we did not encounter many signs of this nature as mask wearing was not mandatory in Australia, except in health care and high-risk settings, such as nursing homes and aged-care centres. Our earlier research found a strong emphasis in the signs and posters on community benefit from complying with the introduced public health regulations.70 Many governments around the world instituted new laws and policies to curb the transmission of COVID-19 that aimed to regulate behaviours, practices and normative expectations through the legitimacy of their legal authority and symbolic power. Predominantly, the new rules have been conveyed through signs and images which bear the insignias of government authorities (for example, Figures 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.6). The legitimacy and symbolic power that emanate from the signs are due to the authority which communicates the message. These signs are embedded in the interaction order where individuals interact face to face and body to body with varying levels of shared assumptions. There are, however, signs that communicate the new rules without relying on the symbolic and legitimising power of government insignias (for example, Figures 4.7 and 4.8). Such signs can still be effective, but their effectiveness rests on other sources of legitimacy: Figure 4.6 is a collage of signs and, while it includes mention of the state in the bottom corners, its overall tone is to appeal to holidaymakers’ self-interest to comply and wear a mask so that the shop can remain open, rather than because of government requirement or community benefit in stemming contagion. Figure 4.8 is located in a space – a church – already laden with normative restrictions. It might be assumed that as the congregation is relatively homogeneous and attuned to compliance with church rules, detailed justifications for mask wearing are unnecessary. In other situations, the diversity of participants and their discrete expectations might mean that stronger language or more detailed instructions is required to explicate the new normative order. This suggests that interaction orders, and social situations, are replete with normative instructions and shared assumptions of appropriate face to face and bodily interaction. Governing through contagion requires certain conditions and resources, including mechanisms for communicating its rules and regulations. Central to the amalgam of new norms that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic is the way information and instructions are communicated, often in the form of simple images and icons in posters and signs that compress complex information widespread in public settings where face-to-face social interaction occurs. These 70 Roach Anleu and Sarantoulias (n 42). Instruction and Information, Images and Icons 97 posters and signs vary in terms of their reliance on law or legal language to enhance compliance. Use of the word ‘mandatory’ implies legally required, suggesting likely enforcement. Instructions regarding mask wearing can also be combined with other COVID-19 requirements such as using QR codes to check in and general hygiene reminders. Signs also vary in terms of appeal to collective wellbeing or self-interest. Often, the instructions and directives imply or assume that the reader has sufficient knowledge, information and understanding of COVID-19, its transmissibility, health consequences, mortality rates and danger that little information about the virus is conveyed. The signs and posters also rely on assumed shared social imaginaries, or understandings and perceptions of reality which form collective beliefs, values, and practices. Social imaginaries are both the needle and thread which form the social fabric of social interaction; they concurrently shape and are shaped by events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, thus forming a part of governing through contagion.