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The Semiotic Mapping of Face Masks / Terracciano, Bianca. - In: REVUE DES SCIENCES SOCIALES. - ISSN 1623-6572. - (2025), pp. 28-37. [10.4000/15af2]

The Semiotic Mapping of Face Masks

Terracciano, Bianca
2025
2025
Pendant la pandémie de Covid-19, le masque sanitaire a dépassé sa fonction première de dispositif de protection pour devenir un objet de négociation sociale, culturelle et esthétique. Basé sur l’analyse approfondie de contenus en ligne entre février 2020 et octobre 2024, cet article analyse comment le port du masque a transformé les interactions, l’expression émotionnelle et les codes culturels, influençant les notions d’identité et de communication. Dans une société centrée sur la visibilité et la reconnaissance des visages, le masque a remis en question la primauté du visage en dissimulant des traits essentiels, réorientant l’expression émotionnelle vers les yeux. En s’appuyant sur le cadre sémiotique de Barthes et le concept de sémiosphère de Lotman, cette analyse met en lumière comment le masque a engendré de nouvelles significations à travers ses intersections avec la mode, la technologie et les sous-cultures. Objet à la fois pratique, utopique, ludique et critique, selon l’axiologie de Jean-Marie Floch, le masque incarne des rôles variés, allant du symbole de responsabilité civique à un moyen d’expression personnelle et culturelle. Par ces dynamiques, le masque se donne à voir comme un dispositif socio-sémiotique, médiateur entre des dimensions individuelles, collectives et esthétiques durant une période historique de transformation. Cet article met ainsi en lumière le double rôle du masque comme dispositif fonctionnel et artefact socio-sémiotique, redéfinissant les notions d’identité et de communication. During the Covid-19 pandemic, face masks became objects of social, cultural, and aesthetic negotiation, moving beyond their primary function as protective devices. Based on extensive online content analysis from February 2020 to October 2024, this article explores how face masks have transformed interactions, expressions, and cultural codes, influencing notions of identity and communication. In a society centered on facial visibility and recognition, masks challenged the primacy of the face by concealing significant features, leading to a reconfiguration of emotional expression through the eyes. Drawing on Barthes’ semiotic framework and Lotman’s concept of the semiosphere, this analysis highlights how masks generated new forms of meaning through intersections with fashion, technology, and subcultures. Masks adopted roles as protective tools, fashion statements, and cultural signifiers, reflecting broader tensions between continuity and change. Four valorizations theorized by Floch—practical, utopian, ludic, and critical—illustrate the multifaceted role of masks, from symbols of civic responsibility to vehicles of personal and cultural expression. These dynamics reveal masks as sociosemiotic devices mediating between individual, collective, and aesthetic dimensions during a transformative historical moment. The artcle highlights the dual role of masks as functional devices and sociosemiotic artifacts, reshaping notions of identity and communication.
semiotics; pandemic; face; masks; fashion; Covid-19; culture
01 Pubblicazione su rivista::01a Articolo in rivista
The Semiotic Mapping of Face Masks / Terracciano, Bianca. - In: REVUE DES SCIENCES SOCIALES. - ISSN 1623-6572. - (2025), pp. 28-37. [10.4000/15af2]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11573/1763848
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