Digital masks: screens, selves and symbolic hygiene in online higher education

Abstract

ABSTRACT Given the central role of digital devices and screens in academic work, their use and our relationship to them are under-theorised in mainstream research into digital education. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, rendered the use of digital screens central to life in ‘lockdowns’. This paper will consider the relationships between digital screens and anti-epidemic face masks, considering these artefacts in terms of functionality, academic subjectivities and epistemic practices, drawing on sociomaterial perspectives, Goffman's categories of lecturing self, and the history of anti-epidemic mask-wearing. I illustrate this with a vignette of teaching via digital screens, given by a member of faculty in an interview study exploring the impact of the lockdown on university staff. It will conclude that the digital screen may be viewed as a ‘digital mask’; carrying out a practical function, but also performing an ideology of hygiene and reason. The implications for digital higher education post-pandemic are discussed.