1 Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic forced governments around the globe to enforce improvised measures in unseen haste to protect their populations.1 Social media platforms offered both a way for authorities to communicate pandemic governance (Choudary, 2024), and a channel for citizens to discuss health interventions. In this chapter, we explore the Finnish COVID-19 pandemic debates regarding face masks by analysing Twitter discussions between 2020 and 2021 to further investigate the dynamics of state-society relations during the pandemic. In Finland, the government exercised biopolitical control (Agamben, 2005) by restricting freedom of movement, as the regional lockdown of the Uusimaa region around Helsinki shows. However, unlike a vast number of European countries and contrary to the recommendations of the World Health Organisation, the Finnish government chose not to impose regulations for mask use. Due to storage problems uncovered after the start of the pandemic, masks were also not readily available. Yet, the ‘hashtag publics’ (Rambukkana, 2015) on Twitter called for face masks as control measures against the spread of the pandemic.
The pandemic hit Finland only months after Sanna Marin, the third female Prime Minister of Finland, took power in December 2019. After the 2019 parliamentary elections, a left-leaning five-party cabinet was formed, which included the Social Democrats (Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue, SDP), the Centre Party (Suomen Keskusta, KESK), the Green League (Vihreä Liitto, VIHR), the Left Alliance (Vasemmistoliitto, VAS), and the Swedish People’s Party (Suomen Ruotsalainen Kansanpuolue, RKP/SFP). Notably, in spring 2020, all five governing parties were chaired by women, with four party leaders aged between 32 and 35 years old. The largest opposition parties were the populist and anti-immigration Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset, PS) and the moderate right National Coalition Party (Kansallinen Kokoomus, KOK) (Palonen, 2020; Niemikari and Raunio, 2022). It appeared that in the face of the crisis until summer 2020, the politics were more consensual than usual, even for Finland, which has long traditions of power-sharing and consensus politics (Palonen, 2021). Initially, there was strong public support for strict measures, with the public seeming to appreciate swift and robust government action. Neither politicians nor the media proposed less stringent policies or earlier relaxation of the emergency measures: the Spring 2020 legislation included a State of Emergency law for three months, school closures and the lockdown of the Uusimaa region which blocked the inhabitants of the capital city regions from traveling to the rest of the country during the Easter holidays. These measures were unanimously supported by the parliamentary parties in Eduskunta (the Finnish Parliament), which also enacted legislation covering the distribution of medication and healthcare equipment and the closure of restaurants from early April until the summer. From autumn 2020, politicians, experts and other actors increasingly disagreed about the regulatory instruments and other policy issues that returned to public debates (Christensen et al., 2023).
During the pandemic, Twitter was heavily used by the Finnish government to measure the pulse of the people. Public sector actors leveraged social media influencers to distribute pandemic-related communication (Reinikainen et al., 2022) and encouraged affective discipline (Laaksonen and Rantasila, 2021). Previous research on Twitter also indicates how pseudonymous accounts contested the COVID-19 consensus (Heikkilä et al., 2022) and spread COVID-19 misinformation (Unlu et al., 2024). A comprehensive analysis of the Twitter mask debates in Finland during the pandemic has been lacking, and the current chapter aims to fulfil this gap. This study of mask-related discussions on Twitter in 2020 and 2021 builds upon our earlier work that examined discursive transformations in the performance of the government and the ‘hashtag landscape’ of Twitter discussions (Palonen and Koljonen, 2021) building an updated dataset that allows for comparative analysis (Palonen and Koljonen, 2021; Carrilho and Palonen, 2024; Carrilho et al., 2025). Our pilot research showed how the Finnish government followed the peaks of the Twitter discussion, and debates were mostly toned down (Palonen and Koljonen, 2021), and pointed to the need to further study face masks as the floating signifier, as it would reveal a key hegemonic contestation in the discursive field (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). Our reading shows how the meaning of masks and mask recommendations was first established, later changed following their enactment, and finally contested by anti-mask narratives (e.g. McCoy, 2023).
Social media platforms provide us with important sites through which to explore the debates with more rigour, and to isolate key moments and discursive changes. Even as the general picture of the early stages of COVID-19 showed national consensus (Christensen et al., 2023), on social media platforms government actions were contested from the beginning. Twitter was described as a virtual network of elites in Finland, with dense connections between Finnish senior politicians and political journalists (Ruoho and Kuusipalo, 2019).
Social media discussions generated online communities who commented upon these policies. Recent research (e.g. Scoville et al., 2022; Rains et al., 2022; Pascual-Ferrá et al., 2021) has shown that anti-mask discussions had a marginal role in public discussions. Instead, a backlash against anti-mask attitudes was an important way masks had been politicised due to widespread antipathy to the figure of the ‘anti-masker’. People violating mask mandates could be seen as irresponsible, which would deepen health and social problems. Mask mandates represented a structure for preserving social order aimed at protecting the community. Finnish users of social media were also disciplining irresponsible others by moralistically evaluating their actions, which ranged from their mask use to spreading misinformation. Online discussions about restriction breakers, such as those having parties, meant that social media became a site of intensive affective disciplining (Laaksonen and Rantasila, 2021).
Our novel anarcho-computational discourse-theoretical approach (AC/DT) with a ‘peak analysis’ tool enabled us to examine transformations and shifts in the Twitter mask discussions during the pandemic in Finland. We demonstrate how in early 2020, mask policies – particularly the lack of an official mask recommendation – were the central point of contestation in an otherwise consensual country. One counter-hegemonic discourse regarded a government mask recommendation as the sole effective method to encourage the consistent use of masks in daily life and thus protect people from infections. This prompted a government U-turn, who in August 2020 promoted the use of masks, and rearticulated these as something positive, moving this floating signifier to another discourse. The critical mask discussions then shifted to perceived laxness of mask recommendation in schools and surveillance of mask wearing in public – which was argued to be the responsible response of citizens. In 2021, Finland then witnessed an increase in anti-mask discussions, which contested the base premises of the previous discourse and instead argued that that it was masks that were dangerous – but that COVID-19 was not. This produced the counter-narrative, which framed the pandemic as a threat to fundamental rights, individual freedoms, and self-determination. The anti-mask discourse had emerged as a counterhegemonic mobilisation using partly similar argumentation and even employing the Marin government’s anti-mask study in its range of references that contested the now more solid pro-mask status quo.
2 Finnish Pandemic Governance: Leadership in the Performance of Control
The Finnish government established a COVID-19 working group in the prime minister’s office, with Prime Minister Marin and her office playing a central role in coordinating leading civil servants from sectoral ministries. While the Prime Minister’s Office, and Marin herself, were the leading authorities, the actual COVID-19 policymaking occurred in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health under Krista Kiuru, also from the Social Democrats. This shows the combination of hierarchical and top-down political leadership. The regulatory responsibility of advice on communicable diseases was located, and the national expertise was the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). Local authorities coordinated local policies and recommendations with state agencies, including enforcing testing, quarantine or isolation against individuals (Saunes et al., 2021; Christensen et al., 2023; Niemikari and Raunio, 2022).
During the early phase of the crisis, the government often convened informal sessions with active coordination and joint press conferences by the chairs of the five coalition partners (Niemikari and Raunio, 2022). The Marin government presented a unanimous voice through ministerial and party leaders’ presence at press conferences demonstrated the government’s control of the issue (Palonen, 2021; Palonen and Koljonen, 2021). The public’s strong trust in scientific expertise (Ruostetsaari, 2017) meant that the experts played an important role in COVID-19 crisis communication in Finland. The early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland were characterised by strict measures to protect the population, especially risk groups, and the capacity of healthcare services (Christensen et al., 2023). The first recommendations, including those for regulating social distancing at work and avoiding travel, were issued on 12 March, and a State of Emergency was declared on 16 March. The Emergency Powers Act enacted emergency legislation that covered school children, reorganised administrative sectors of social welfare and healthcare, regulated working life, and placed restrictions on freedom of movement. The closure of the Uusimaa capital region from 28 March to 15 April was used as a central tool for COVID-19 control in the first wave – but the implications of this upon civil liberties prompted widespread debate. The State of Emergency was repealed on 15 June, when the first wave was over. During the summer, travel restrictions were discussed and lifted on 7 July for some countries and restored on 19 August (Palonen, 2021).
After these initial strict command-type restrictions, the government adopted a ‘hybrid strategy’, which was consistently communicated during the pandemic. This strategy focused on enhanced management of the pandemic; that is, testing, tracing, isolation and treating (Christensen et al., 2023). The face masks recommendation was issued on 13 August and updated on 25 September. Discussion about the second wave continued in early September, and while the second wave was seen as comparatively small, the situation was seen as getting worse in October. The government issued reasons for their reluctance on face masks on 14 October. Tighter restrictions were issued again at the turn of November to December, when on 26 November, the Prime Minister called for people to avoid physical contact. In early December, attention was on vaccinations promised to everyone who wanted them (Palonen, 2021).
During 2021, the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic became a central issue of discussion, particularly from the cultural and event sectors. The COVID-19 vaccines became available to everyone, but not everyone was vaccinated, including health sector personnel. The political competition took place locally around health services and regional reform, as the municipal elections were held in summer 2021. The same discussion continued in the run-up to the regional elections in January 2022. Regarding vaccinations, Finland experienced a slow roll-out during early 2021, but by August 2021, 42.8% of the population had already received two shots (Niemikari and Raunio, 2022; Palonen, 2022).
Our research shows how government communications and policies did leave room for improvement, as the actual realisations of the hybrid strategy were changing iterations of a complex three-tiered (‘traffic lights’) system. Furthermore, the government, health experts and regional officials often gave different accounts of the situation, thus confusing the public (Palonen and Koljonen, 2021; Niemikari and Raunio, 2022).
3 Researching Hegemonic Contestation in the Hashtag Landscape: the AC/DT Method
In a discursive field, political meanings are in flux. In this chapter, we engage with political contestation during the time when the consensual politics of the pandemic governance was contested in the hashtag landscape. We have drawn on the theory and analytical vocabulary developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985), where articulation is the process of constructing social relations on a discursive field: this is where political identities and demands are formulated, and hegemonies are established and contested. The temporary connections between discourse’s ‘elements’ or ‘nodal points’, give discursive structure to communities, formed as they rally around beliefs and principles, and these enable us to explore political and social struggles and antagonism (Howarth et al., 2000). Floating signifiers reveal how political frontiers are drawn to demarcate different political identities and social groups.
From this perspective, politics is about debate over good and bad options, out of which emerge diverse demands that also enable political identification. Hegemony, as proposed by Laclau and Mouffe, is not merely the domination of one class or group over another, but a discursive achievement that hinges on the capacity to mobilise meaning. This mobilisation is evident during the pandemic in the struggle over what constitutes legitimate knowledge. Established scientific narratives are challenged by counter-discourses (what might be termed ‘alt-science’) that seek to redefine the parameters of truth and credibility (Saresma and Palonen, 2022). This theorising motivates our approach, which focuses on relational dynamics in digital spaces.
Unlike traditional media, in which gatekeeping and institutional authority often determine which narratives prevail, digital platforms offer a decentralised space where multiple voices can converge. The diffusion of authority accelerates the circulation of signifiers and amplifies the struggle over their meaning. As a result, social media becomes a terrain of contestation where hegemonic projects are enabled and disrupted, highlighting contemporary knowledge production. This is also where authorities communicated during the pandemic worldwide (Chowdary, 2024). Hashtags and keywords serve as digital discourses’ nodal points, connecting meanings and identities (Palonen et al., 2024). They facilitate articulating demands and identities, enabling disparate voices to come together and form a collective discourse (Rambukkana, 2015). For instance, hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo have become rallying points for social movements, encapsulating complex social issues into succinct, powerful symbols that can be easily disseminated and mobilised. Hashtags and keywords also prove useful in the selection of research data.
Corpus-assisted discourse analysis has recently developed (Matheson, 2023), even with discourse theoretical underpinnings (Jacobs and Tschötschel, 2019). Palonen and Koljonen’s (2021) approach to digital discourse, conceptualised as a ‘hashtag landscape’, focused on analysing peaks in Twitter activity and topic modelling to reveal political contestation. Our methodological aim is to combine big data tools and theoretic sensitivity to produce analysis that can benefit from massive data volumes and produce interpretive and thick descriptions based on theory (Lindgren, 2020). Expanding our previous work and drawing on our ongoing studies, we developed an approach to examine political contestation in pandemic governance.
The Anarcho-Computational Discourse Theoretical (AC/DT) approach integrates experimentalist computational analysis with discourse theory to trace hegemonic struggles. In contrast to Critical Discourse Analysis’ methods-focused approach that explores certain categories in data, AC/DT moves experimentally, bottom-up with loosely defined categories seeing them being articulated in practice. The prefix ‘Anarcho-’ does not mean we fully abandon structured analysis, it simply allows us to explore different structures and protocols iteratively, understanding that ‘science will succeed only if anarchistic moves are occasionally allowed to take place’ (Feyerabend, 1975: 18).
The AC/DT experimental perspective to data gathers and explores bottom-up in an instrumentalist (Pääkkönen and Ylikoski, 2021) and interpretivist way (Lindgren, 2020). The techniques provide information about data patterns and guide subsequent interpretation of the primary text materials. AC/DT allows a deeper engagement with meaning articulation across temporal and relational dynamics. Beyond hashtag analysis we advance an understanding of digital discourse as a dynamic, relational, antagonistic field where signifiers are continuously rearticulated. We examine digital dynamics, illustrating how political and social groups articulate identities and demands through hashtags and keywords, thereby creating and contesting digital frontiers. Rather than relying on theoretical or methodological conventions pre-determining the object, operationalising the AC/DT lense we interact with the data, allowing it to speak about the ways in which political and social groups articulate their positions and identities, highlighting the ongoing struggle for discursive hegemony in the digital age.
Our study examines Finnish-language Twitter discourse on face masks from January 2020 through December 2021 while using computational text analysis on 366,988 tweets to detect discursive patterns. Our data consists of mask-related Twitter tweets published in Finnish during this period. Thus, we used computer-assisted text analysis (Grimmer et al., 2022) to augment our reading ability. To follow research ethics and to protect laypeople in online contexts, we only refer to politicians and public authorities by name in the tweets that have been translated and transcribed from Finnish.
Our three-step approach involved exploratory data gathering via the Twitter API, MeCodify (Al-Saqaf, 2016), and Twarc; topic modelling (Blei et al., 2003) to cluster discourse themes; and ‘peak analysis’ (Palonen and Koljonen, 2021) to identify high-intensity discursive moments; and qualitative close readings of 62,604 sampled tweets. Tableau software was used to indicate the daily frequency of tweets on each topic (or cluster) for trending themes. High frequencies of daily tweets, containing one or more topics (clusters) of tweets, were defined as ‘Peaks’. ‘Peaks’ with fewer than 40 tweets per day were disregarded. The remaining 826 topics, comprising 62,604 tweets, were then manually sampled by closely reading 10–20 tweets, before being grouped into themes or categories. Sometimes, the discussions related to more than one theme: a topic could be grouped into up to three themes.
Augmented close reading with peak analysis allowed us to map the ‘hashtag landscape’ to analyse the social media discussions on an aggregated and thematic level, not just key individuals, politicians or agencies. The topics produced in this approach are ‘skeletons’ of discourses, which then are fleshed out by attentive close reading. Peaks were defined as periods of intensified articulation. We could systematically investigate the data sets chronologically, exploring how potential periods could be found to reveal how political identities are (re)articulated, structured, and contested in these discursive moments. Different nodal points and discursive clustering could be seen in these discourse junctions. Our approach enabled us to explore how floating signifiers emerge in contestation as they are being given different meanings, structuring the discursive field and its contestations. Face masks became such nodal points in discourse. In the next section, we describe how we applied peak analysis to identify key moments in mask-related discourse and explore the shifting political and social articulations over time.
4 Peak Analysis: Periodising the Pandemic through Mask Use
Periodisation enables us to explore the pandemic as a process. The pandemic periodisation has been done from alternate points of view in previous research. One way of dividing pandemic periods in Finland is based on divisions in the mode of governance (Niemikari and Raunio, 2022; Poyet et al., 2023). This governance-based periodisation is divided into three phases:
March–June 2020: strict measures to protect the population, a state of emergency, a wide range of financial support measures and historical isolation of the capital region of Uusimaa from the rest of the country. Improvised and legally dubious measures based on a sense of national urgency and unity characterised this phase.
Summer 2020: Declining COVID-19 infections and the government gradually lifting exceptional measures and restrictions and the government adopted a ‘test, trace, isolate and treat’ hybrid strategy and adopted non-mandatory mask recommendations for crowded situations like public transport.
Autumn–winter 2020: The increased COVID-19 cases prompted the government to enact a ‘traffic light’ tier system for international travel and a domestic 3-tier system implementation of a hybrid strategy. The more contagious variants prompted the government to enact another 3-tier system in spring 2021.
A gradual politicisation of pandemic governance caused a rift between governmental coalition parties that began to emerge from autumn 2020 onwards, during which time pandemic measures and other policy issues returned to public debate. An analysis of the Parliamentary debates from March 2020 and March 2021 capture the initial shared perception and morally charged consensus with disputes over the means to attain shared goals. During 2021, the parliamentary discussions shifted from masks to COVID-19 passes and their potential to violate fundamental values. Notably, the Finns Party and Christian Democrats advocating collective and state-driven action in earlier mask discussions opposed the passes based on individual constitutional rights. Still, the pandemic was widely considered a serious threat to Finnish society in 2021. Similar to other countries (see e.g. Kerr and Foley, this volume), the politicisation of COVID-19 raised concerns about its ability to polarise popular opinion, and unlike in 2020, when any contestation was deemed irresponsible and even unpatriotic, in 2021 the legitimate coexistence of a plurality of opinions was supported (Lehtonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2024).
Our periodisation of the mask discussions draws on peak analysis, with systematically and retrospectively gathered data spanning from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland to the end of 2021. It shows how the mask discussion of 2020 and 2021 can be divided into three periods: the first period, defined as the ‘Crisis management’ period from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland in spring 2020 to the enactment of mask recommendations in August 2020; the second period spans from autumn 2020 to the end of 2020, which is characterised as the ‘Normalised management of the COVID pandemic’; and the last period spans from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021, which is defined as the period of ‘Consensus Falling Apart’. Figure 6.1 shows the frequency of Tweets daily, divided into topics and the general division of periods.
In the next section, we will describe the main themes of the mask discussions in each period. Following this, we explore three themes from the periodisation: mask recommendation discussions during 2020, mask surveillance discussions from autumn 2020 to the end of 2021 and anti-mask discussions from December 2020 until the end of 2021. We selected these themes for closer investigation as the mask recommendation discussions of 2020 represented a relatively major part of the mask discussions 2020 and because they were one of the main avenues of opposition to contest the government’s mask policies.
Koljonen, J. Data source: Twitter. Date created: February 9th, 2025
The periods do not represent strict and swift changes in the discussions but general themes. Thus, some of the discussions continue (sometimes in changed form) in periods other than where they emerged. An example of this phenomenon is ‘maskgate’, which happened during the first period but re-emerged briefly during the second. As discursive moments or nodal points, they help to trace what happened during the pandemic and what was discussed in a slightly chaotic period.
4.1 Crisis Management: from the Beginning of the Pandemic to the Enactment of the Mask Recommendation in August 2020
Based on the data we analysed, the first period of the novel pandemic can be described as a ‘crisis management’ period. At this point, the mask discussions dealt with public policy, or the lack thereof, on masks. Figure 6.2 shows the frequency of tweets per day during the period. Four major themes emerged in mask-related discussions: mask use, homemade masks, lack of official mask recommendations, and government preparedness. The mask use theme was related to discussions about the practicalities of use, including how to use masks, how infections happen, how masks are supposed to help, mask prices, and where to get them. Discussions on this theme were often characterised by informational and non-confrontational sentiments, where Twitter users generally tried to help others.
The second theme about homemade masks related to the discussion about homemade and fabric (‘kangasmaski’) masks and their efficiency and use. Twitter users argued for the DIY option because of the lack of official masks and policies regarding mask use. Many Twitter users criticised the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare for inconsistent or contradictory instructions. Some Twitter users and organisations also defended an official policy of not recommending masks. This can be seen as hegemonic contestation, whereby the absence of official guidelines is compensated with a DIY approach.
The third theme related to mask recommendations was mainly a critical discussion about the government and officials concerning the lack of official mask recommendations. Initially, Twitter users argued for mandatory mask use due to international experiences. From the beginning of April, a more critical tone emerged about the government and officials. Twitter users questioned the lack of official mask recommendations or a mandatory mask use policy. Some Twitter users argued that people should use masks without official recommendations, and some criticised the authorities for mask policy politicisation.
The fourth theme related to government preparedness and mask sufficiency. Early discussions in this theme showed general concern that there are not enough masks for healthcare workers and that they need to be prioritised. More critical sentiment directed at the government and officials emerged from April 2020 onwards. Many Twitter users argued that mask insufficiency is evidence that the government and officials were unprepared for the COVID-19 epidemic and that the government dismissed mask use because there were not enough masks:
Would it be possible for the government to be honest and admit that the underestimation of the use of face shields is actually due to the fact that there are simply no masks in Finland, and that there are not enough of them at a moment’s notice? The preparation was bad. People are not endlessly stupid and believe nonsense. (Tweet from Jani Mäkelä, PS politician, on 3 April 2020)
Rather than simply becoming symbols of freedom or oppression, masks were more a question of government and authorities’ competence in the Finnish case, with masks as a key floating signifier marking the contestation between different policy stances.
The government initially reassured the public that Finland had good preparedness (Palonen and Koljonen, 2021). However, as the crisis unfolded, the government’s initial failure to provide protective equipment via the National Emergency Supply Agency and purchases from dubious sources (Mörttinen, 2021) led to discussions about face masks and insufficient government preparedness (‘maskgate’), as shown in Figure 6.2. The issue quickly evolved into accusations of government incompetence (Palonen & Koljonen, 2021) and accusations of purposefully politicising masks and refusing to enact mask recommendations. Criticism of the government emerged from opposition parties, as well as from the business sector, academia, and private individuals. The ‘maskgate’ incident referred to the question of mask sufficiency interjected with mask recommendation discussions and strengthened the argument about government incompetence and lack of preparedness.
Koljonen, J. Data source: Twitter. Date created: February 9th, 2025
Another concern was the cost of masks. The arguments about who should pay for the mask purchase seemed to diverge according to the party line, whereby left and green-party-affiliated people and organisations argued for employers/government to supply masks or pay for masks, and right-wing party-affiliated persons argued that people should pay for their masks. Shortly before the enactment of the mask recommendation, the Finnish Tax Administration declared that masks purchased by employers for employees would be tax-deductible, which ended the significant discussions about mask prices.
4.2 Mask Recommendation Discourse: Contesting the Government
The discussion about the need for a mask mandate or recommendation began in March. As the Finnish government had enacted otherwise strict measures to protect the population and capacity of the health care services (Niemikari and Raunio, 2022), one of the main themes in mask-related Twitter discussions was the lack of mask recommendations. While the government hesitated to argue for a recommendation, members and supporters of both opposition parties, the National Coalition Party and The Finns Party, strongly argued that the mask recommendation should be enacted.
Mask use was almost uniformly seen as beneficial in Twitter mask discussions, like parliamentary debates (Lehtonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2024). In this mask discourse, a chain of equivalence was present, whereby mask-wearing was argued to be essential in avoiding infections, and only the official mask recommendation was linked to mask-wearing. In reverse, the lack of official mask-wearing policies was equal to not wearing a mask:
The morning’s Helsingin Sanomat claims that we are implementing a German hybrid strategy. That’s not true. The most significant difference is the opposition to mask use driven by STM [Ministry of Social Affairs and Health] and THL [Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare]. The lack of masks is a crucial factor in spreading the epidemic. A reusable mask is sufficient. (Tweet, 3 May 2020)
Thus, we can recognise the chains of equivalence in this pro-mask and pro-mask recommendation discourse, connecting the different nodal points:
Safety from COVID-19 infections = Mask wearing
No official mask recommendation = lack of masks = spread of epidemic
Implicitly, both arguments rested on the assumption that COVID-19 is dangerous or a threat:
COVID-19 infections = dangerous
In Laclaudian theoretical terms, COVID-19 as a danger or threat is one nodal point, and the linkage between mask-wearing and infection safety is another nodal point.
The mask recommendation discussions of spring 2020 were a related but partly separate discourse, which agreed with masks as effective tools, but contested the government mask policy. The ‘mask recommendation’ nodal point was a proxy for population-wide mask use, which was then argued to be the same as protecting the population from infections. The arguments supporting mask recommendation had three main themes: scientific arguments for mask recommendation/mask mandate, international experiences of mask mandates and masks as a way of opening the economy.
The scientific arguments for mask recommendation were about international studies in which mask-wearing was recommended by researchers. Often, the petitions for mask recommendation were combined with critiques of the government, in which Twitter users claimed that the government policies were not based on the best international scientific results regarding mask-wearing.
A major event that gathered large amounts of criticism of the government was a mask study published in May by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (see Figure 6.2), which did not recommend mask use. Here, the Twitter users both accused the government of politicising mask use and using ‘bad science’ to support the government’s argument that masks should not be used, declaring that ‘the analysis is so narrowly focused that no other outcome would have been possible’ (Tweet, 2 June 2020) or even its pragmatic nature:
The purpose of the state’s mask research is to protect the government from the criticism it will soon face due to the upcoming mask recommendation, which is also supported by the WHO. Now that local production is keeping up with medical consumption, masks can be recommended for everyone. (Tweet, 2 June 2020)
Contestation of government policies due to the lack of mask recommendations was not limited to opposition parties but also business and civil society actors. For example, on 2 June, a group of Finnish scientists published a petition to the government to enact the mask recommendation (Independent Finnish COVID-19 Advisory Network, 2020), which was widely discussed and retweeted on Twitter:
We have published an open letter proposing the issuance of a mask recommendation. The matter is being supported by our well-known ‘eroonkoronasta’ expert group, now with new names: over 30 experts, including @myllarni, Bengt Holmström, and @MartinScheininF. (Tweet, 3 June)
Equivalence in these arguments was between wearing a mask, mask recommendation and the ‘best scientific information’, whereby mask recommendation was seen as a way of ensuring mask wearing. The chain of equivalence connected different signifiers:
Mask wearing = mask recommendation = best scientific information
Similarly, in reverse, having no official mask recommendation or mask-wearing policy was seen as action opposed to the best scientific information.
The international comparison was also an essential argument in Twitter for the mask mandate in the Spring of 2020. These discussions are about how restrictions and mask mandate policies are done in other countries:
Picture today from Austria, where at the entrance of the market you get a free face mask, which is mandatory in shops. I watched @YleAstudio and was about to fall off my chair. Finland is really starting NOW to investigate the necessity of masks!?! Absurd! Bye bye Hölmölä, welcome to Kafka-land! (Tweet 6 May 2020)
In the discussions in which international experiences are discussed, the mask requirements and mask policies from other countries are used as examples of good policy, in contrast to the lack of mask recommendations in Finland. Twitter users are arguing that as the mask mandates are taken into use in other countries, they should be also used in Finland. The chain of equivalence in these international arguments:
No mask recommendation = government is incompetent
The third argument for the mask recommendation in Finland was based on the economy. In this argument, the mask mandate was seen as a way of lifting restrictions and opening the economy. That is, the lack of a mask mandate was argued to harm the economy:
The strangest feature of the government’s #corona policy is the reluctance to recommend the use of #masks. The information about the benefits may be uncertain, but it is certain that it would not restrict people’s freedoms or harm the economy. Minimal cost, possible benefit; worth trying. (Tweet, 6 May 2020)
The chain of equivalence was drawn between mask recommendation and economy in these arguments was:
Mask recommendation = lifting restrictions = helps the economy
The spring 2020 mask debate in Finland was shaped by the assumption that only an official recommendation would ensure public compliance and reduce infections. The government’s reluctance to issue a mask recommendation was criticised as ignoring scientific evidence, increasing infections, harming the economy, and demonstrating incompetence. Opposition parties and civil society actors actively challenged this stance, arguing that a mask recommendation aligned with the best scientific knowledge, supported economic recovery, and was backed by international experiences (Lehtonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2024).
While some defended the government, suggesting that people should use common sense and wear masks regardless of official guidance, most Twitter discussions advocated for a mask recommendation. Interestingly, both government and opposition arguments framed their positions around scientific legitimacy. Opposition parties demanded adherence to the latest research, while the government insisted its policies were based on science. The debate was not about science versus pseudoscience, but rather how scientific discourse was mobilised to justify competing policy claims.
4.3 Normalised Management: from the Enactment of Mask Recommendation in August 2020 to the End of 2020
The decision to adopt the mask recommendation caused a major shift in the Twitter discussions related to face masks. Compared to the first period, the discussions during the second period show a shift from crisis mode to a more ‘normalised management’ situation with the pandemic. Figure 6.3 shows the frequency of tweets per day during the period 2. The main themes of the discussions during the second period were mask use and responsible behaviour and extending mask recommendations in schools.
The second period shows less contestation with the government than the first period, but with one exception: In the aftermath of ‘maskgate’, the meanings of face masks were contested between the groups. Even the scientific study that originally legitimated the lack of masks was now becoming a marker of lack of credibility of the government. Previously, we have shown that the government addressed these accusations through the hashtag landscape, and the debate toned down (Koljonen and Palonen, 2021). Now we should look at the masks as a floating signifier in the pandemic discursive field.
The pro-mask argument continued from the first period. This theme was characterised by discussions in which Twitter users argued that wearing a face mask, taking other COVID-19 precautions and generally following rules was responsible behaviour. In many discussions, the Twitter users argued that as infections increased, using masks and following rules were responsible for avoiding strict lockdowns and restrictions. Also, figures of authority often requested that people wear masks.
In terms of a sheer number of tweets, the aftermath of the ‘maskgate’ was perhaps the most salient event during our research period, as shown in Figure 6.3. What began in spring as accusations that the government was incompetent and had politicised the mask issues re-emerged in autumn as accusations that the government lied about masks. The re-emergence began on 8 October, when PM Sanna Marin argued in the spring that masks were not recommended because too few masks were available. Many opposition politicians contrasted this with mask information from some authorities, which argued that masks were not effective. Many Twitter users accused the Marin Government of twisting the truth or even lying:
In the spring we were told that masks are not useful. Now we are told that they are useful, in the spring they just lied when there weren’t enough masks. Such a thing. Large-scale, planned lying. What else are the government and officials lying to people about now
(Tweet by Mikael Jugner, Movement Now (Liike Nyt, Liik) politician, 8 October 2020)
Koljonen, J. Data source: Twitter. Date created: February 13th, 2025
In contrast, the government argued that they had informed the public that there were not enough masks in spring, and blamed the opposition for politicising the pandemic and being hypocritical regarding masks if they agreed to wear them themselves:
What should we think about the fact that members of parliament (referring to National Coalition MP s), who move around the parliament without a mask, come in front of the television with masks on their faces to express distrust of the government’s mask guidelines? I spent 43 years in the work force and only in the parliament do I see this kind of fooling around. (Tweet by Aki Linden, doctor and former health official, now SDP minister, 10 October 2020)
Inconsistency in the use of masks and recommendations was a veritable issue during this period, and it caused cognitive dissonance among the tweeters. It was related to the governance of the pandemic and trust. As a floating signifier, masks were contested on both sides and not always systematically.
As the mask recommendation had only been for public transport and for children who are 15 years or older, a major theme about mask use in schools and with children emerged in autumn 2020. The Twitter users petitioned the government to make more strict mask recommendations for children and schools, arguing that the current mask recommendation left the children unprotected and as the number of COVID-19 infections surged during autumn 2020, made schools spread infections to families. They were often critical about the government relating to perceived lax mask-wearing policies and governments underestimating minors and families:
THL defined that “Masks are only for people over 15 years old”?
What the hell? Now it’s starting to feel like children under the age of 15 are now being left without life jackets on this “sinking ship”. The adults are saved, but what about the children??? (Tweet, 14 October 2020)
In this discourse, the floating signifier of masks connected to the familiar themes from spring continued, as the mask recommendation for schools was seen as imperative for adapting mask use in schools:
Safety from COVID-19 infections = mask wearing = Mask recommendation
Unlike in spring 2020, there were no major factions participating in the mask recommendation critique related to schools. In a few cases, journalists, some researchers, and opposition parties’ members of parliament did participate in these discussions, mainly to criticise the government or the mask policy.
Another major theme in mask and mask recommendation related discussions in autumn was responsible behaviour. In many discussions, the act of using masks or following the mask recommendation was described as a responsible thing to do. In similar vein, not wearing a mask was described as irresponsible:
The COVID-19 situation is gradually worsening here as well. Therefore, it is now important to act responsibly: Wash your hands, maintain social distancing, and avoid crowded situations. Use masks on public transport. Now is the time to take responsibility for others, too: For your neighbours and the city’s entrepreneurs. (Tweet, Jan Vapaavuori Helsinki Mayor, National Coalition, 24 August 2020)
This morning, I received a video that was recorded yesterday in Helsinki at 11:40 PM: hundreds of young people dancing closely together, with a few wearing masks. Because of such #corona parties, responsible entrepreneurs, restaurants, sports clubs, etc., are now suffering – and the whole society, hospitals, etc. (Tweet, Aki Linden SDP, 17 August 2020)
In a discourse in which face masks were positively charged, responsible behaviour was connected to avoiding the spread of COVID, avoiding additional restrictions, and caring for the well-being of other people. The chains of equivalences were:
Mask-wearing and following COVID-19 precautions = being responsible = stop COVID spreading = caring for other people.
In reverse, not wearing a mask and other COVID-19 precautions were argued to be irresponsible and selfish and would cause suffering and economic hardship.
Unlike the mask recommendation discussions of spring 2020, the discussions about responsible behaviour did not generally contest government policies. Instead, the criticism focused on the people who did not use masks. This was a move towards mask monitoring, which we elaborate on at the end of the chapter. The enactment of the mask recommendation in August 2020 shifted discussions towards tightening school rules to protect children and prevent household infections. While the government opposed mask recommendations in spring 2020, by autumn, the opposition also included ‘irresponsible’ individuals. Responsible behaviour now meant following mask guidelines and pandemic precautions, while irresponsibility was linked to ignoring them. The mask surveillance discourse emerged, targeting those seen as disregarding public health, spreading infections, and harming the economy – including individuals, grocery shops, and public transport companies that failed to enforce mask use.
4.4 Consensus Falling Apart: the Emergence of an Anti-mask Discourse in 2021
The themes of the third period were both a continuation from previous periods and new themes emerging: responsible behaviour, mask recommendation, curfew and mandatory mask use, end of mask recommendation and anti-mask discussions. Figure 6.4 shows the overview of discussions about masks. Following Scoville et al. (2022), we define anti-mask discussions as discussions in which masks are either opposed as a public health measure or opposition to public policies requiring mask-wearing. This discussion emerged in 2021.
Koljonen, J. Data source: Twitter. Date created: March 1st, 2025
Rising infections from new variants led the government to impose a three-week ‘lockdown’ in March 2021 and declare a state of emergency for the second time (Niemikari and Raunio, 2022). During this period, discussions on mask recommendations and debates on a proposed mandatory mask requirement emerged. Our data show a simultaneous emergence of discussions about recommending masks, mixed with discussions related to the proposed mandatory mask requirement.
As the stricter restrictions were enacted and the likelihood of a curfew was discussed, a discussion related to mandatory mask use began to emerge (see Figure 6.4). Twitter users argued that the government should prioritise implementing a mandatory mask-wearing requirement before imposing a curfew or other restrictions that more significantly infringe on personal liberty. Also, sometimes, Twitter users included border security and mandatory testing as requirements before any curfew should be enacted. Both National Coalition party members and The Finns Party members criticised the government with these arguments, but the criticism was not limited only to politicians:
Very simple. Until the borders are secured and mandatory testing for incoming travellers and a widespread mask mandate are enforced, I will not accept any movement restrictions within the country. (Tweet by Jani Mäkelä, Finns Party MP, 14 March 2021)
The Twitter debate about mandatory mask use in spring 2021 shows, as Lehtonen and Ylä-Anttila (2024) argue, that there was still wide consensus among members of parliament and most users discussing this topic that masks were an effective means by which to protect the population from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, unlike in 2020, when the Twitter discussions were almost uniformly pro-mask, a theme emerged that rejected both masks and mask recommendations or mask mandates:
It’s still just as useless because #facemasks are mostly about identity politics. Masks do not filter tiny viruses from the air, and they provide only marginal benefit as droplet protection. #facediaper (Tweet, 11 March 2021)
In these anti-mask discussions, both the government restrictions and possible curfew and mask mandates argued by opposition politicians were rejected. In addition, unlike either government or opposition politicians – and a wide majority of Twitter users discussing masks – the mask was also rejected as being useless or potentially dangerous.
Another recurring theme related to both mask recommendations and mask mandates was mask use in schools and with children. As in the second period, in this theme, the Twitter users continued to argue that the government should make schools safe for children to attend by enacting stricter mask requirements. Also, as with mask mandates, a mask-rejecting theme emerged in discussions about masks and children in spring 2021. In these discussions, Twitter users argued that masks are dangerous and that children should not be forced to wear them. In some cases, the threat of COVID-19 was rejected:
You could call it abuse, children should be taken away from parents who allow their children to be abused. COVID-19 is not a risk for children – the mask is. (Tweet, 7 April 2021)
Reflecting on this, both mask governance and related mask discussions shifted in autumn 2021. The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare updated the mask recommendation on 30 September 2021 so that the mask can be used ‘at one’s own discretion’. This update caused discussions to emerge in Twitter related to the end of mask recommendation. Two main observations emerged: the new recommendation was confusing, and the new recommendation was not strict enough.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland, communication from the government and officials created confusion (Niemikari and Raunio, 2022). In many discussions, the Twitter users complained that they did not understand what was meant by the new recommendation, and how it differed from the previous ones:
Today, I tried to explain to international business executives how the new ‘should use masks’ recommendation differs from the previous mask recommendation. I gave up before I even started when I realised I had no idea what I was talking about. (Tweet, 1 October 2021)
As the infection rates increased again in autumn 2021, another Twitter user began to argue that the government and authorities lifted mask recommendation and tracing too early, and old COVID-19 policies and strategies should be reinstated. Discussions related to a COVID Pass and masks were minor in Finnish Twitter during 2021. There were a few discussions in which the government and authorities were criticised due to confusing protection measures. Twitter discussions related to responsible behaviour and mask use continued through 2021. As in the previous year, many Twitter users and politicians criticised other people’s lack of mask use and the perceived laxness of official mask policies. In some cases, members of opposition parties and members of government parties criticised each other for not wearing masks.
4.5 Anti-mask Discourse: Anti-establishment Critique
Twitter’s mask-related discussions were predominantly pro-mask during the year 2020. However, from December 2020 onwards, anti-mask discussions began to emerge. At the beginning of 2021, the frequency of tweets began increasing, peaking at the end of March. The frequency of anti-mask tweets subsided for a time but increased again in autumn 2021. Four themes of arguments emerged in these anti-mask discussions: masks don’t work, or masks are dangerous, the COVID-19 pandemic is a scam or hoax, and mask use is an infringement on personal liberties and critique towards the Finnish government and officials.
The first subgroup – which might be the most prevalent – comprised claims that masks don’t work or that masks are dangerous. The argument in its most basic form goes that masks and COVID-19 restrictions do not work because they are ineffective against an aerosol-spread virus or evidence from other countries shows that masks do not work:
Viruses spread as aerosols, which masks are ineffective against. One study adds against masks. Masks must be rejected as ineffective and harmful. (Tweet, 9 August 2021)
Other variations of this argument state that masks are (not only) useless, but due their composition or because of how they work, they are dangerous. A wide range of reasons is suggested for why the masks are dangerous, but common with them is that it is argued they are harmful (or more harmful than a COVID-19 infection):
The normal exhaled CO2 carries away metabolic waste / the mask stops this and a microbial mass is created / this travels back to the lungs, generating pathogens/cytokines and then possibly lung cancer. For all ages. (Tweet, 18 February 2021)
A sub-type of this argument argues that the masks are dangerous, and people or officials who recommended mask use in schools were endangering the children. Twitter users argued that masks can harm children, and parents and officials who force children to wear masks are irresponsible:
The mask can lead to brain damage. Children and young people are vulnerable! (Tweet, 6 April 2021)
The chains of equivalence in these arguments were dealt with danger and protection:
Mask-wearing = does not protect from COVID-19 infections, and masks = dangerous
These chains of equivalence show how mask-wearing was framed negatively in the discourse. The linkage between ‘masks do not protect from COVID-19’ and ‘masks are dangerous’ suggests an attempt to discredit mask usage, associating it with inefficacy and harm. This argument structure contributes to the broader resistance against public health measures and reflects the diversity of narratives present in the discourse. These two chains of equivalence are the central theme of the anti-mask discussions, in which the nodal point is that ‘mask-wearing does not protect us’. This nodal point directly contests the mask discourse where masks were considered efficient, and COVID-19 was understood as a dangerous disease.
The second salient argument, linked to the claims about masks, restrictions, and later also vaccines, is that the COVID-19 pandemic is a scam or hoax, and it is used as an excuse for something else. Linked to the claim that COVID-19 is a hoax are claims that it only affects people who wear masks and take vaccinations, hinting that it is not a serious disease or that there is a link between COVID-19 precautions and infections.
We, the critics of corona measures do not wear masks, do not go get tests, and do not run to get the vaccinations because we are healthy. That is, the positive test results come to those who constantly wear masks and who have been vaccinated. Let that sink in. (Tweet, 5 August)
The chain of equivalence here reflected on the disease:
COVID-19 pandemic = Not serious disease
The second argument supports the first argument by contesting the other important nodal point of existing mask discourse, which was that COVID-19 was a threat. The contesting discourse claimed that COVID-19 was not dangerous but masks and other precautions were.
The third major argument is that recommended or required use of a mask was an infringement on personal liberties, or they are illegal or anti-constitutional. Related to this argument are claims that it is permissible to not wear a mask because of health reasons, and these health reasons are private and a person not wearing masks does not need to disclose them:
Dozens of court decisions have already been made around the world, where, for example, masks and restrictions have been found to be illegal. (Tweet, 9 June 2021)
The chain of equivalence here was focused on liberties:
Mask mandates and recommendations = infringement on personal liberties / illegal
The fourth type of argument is about critique towards the Finnish government and officials. The argument is that the government or politicians and health officials are behaving like dictators or have personal gain in a pandemic:
This really full of crap. Corruption really shines through no matter where you look. Is this now allowed to continue, and the Finns just sit with a pacifier in their mouth (a mask on their face) and their eyes blind, refusing to see what is happening in this country?
(Tweet, 30 December 2024)
A variation of anti-mask critique towards government is related to mask wearing in schools. Here, the claim was that the mask restrictions or requirements were irresponsible and done by irresponsible or corrupt authorities:
Where are the masks of the elite and at the same time in schools, children and young people are forced to wear them
The chain of equivalence here included clear anti-elitism:
Government /elites = corrupt /evil
Supported by the nodal points of ‘mask-wearing does not protect us’ and ‘COVID-19 is not dangerous’, the anti-mask discourse argued that the mask policies, vaccines and other COVID-19 measures were a sinister plot by corrupted elites.
From a discourse analytic perspective, the anti-mask discourse in late 2020 challenged the dominant view of masks as effective and COVID-19 as a serious epidemic. Though a minority in 2021, these discussions persisted throughout the year, framing mask policies as part of broader restrictive and harmful measures imposed by elites (Lehtonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2024). Unlike government-opposition debates over implementation, the anti-mask discourse rejected the goal itself, equating masks, restrictions, and vaccinations as being ineffective and sinister.
This discourse portrayed the government, officials, mainstream media, and occasionally the EU as adversaries, sometimes using terms like ‘dictatorial’ to describe authorities. As McCoy (2023) argues, mask policies can be seen as public health measures and tools of control, depending on the narrative. While Finland did not witness large anti-lockdown protests, these discussions contested government crisis management and called for a return to the ‘old normal’ (Gerbaudo, 2023).
The anti-mask discussions surged in the spring of 2021, with increased establishment criticism of the government due to infection rates and aborted attempts to establish a curfew (Niemikari and Raunio, 2022). We argue that breaking down the consensus imperative of 2020 (Lehtonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2024) also opened the door for anti-mask and anti-establishment contestation of the policies of government and opposition. The anti-mask Twitter users attempted to benefit from the discontent with the government by contesting government and opposition arguments.
4.6 Mask Surveillance Discourse: Monitoring Resilience
Hashtag publics (Rambukkana, 2015) emerged around like-minded people on social media. In our data, one of these communities and tweeting practices was mask surveillance, whereby citizens observe their peers. We decided to characterise this as monitoring resilience and highlight it in our research. The section ends with the case of combining anti- and pro-mask monitoring.
We examined ‘mask surveillance’ discussions as an aspect of anti-mask backlash in Finland. From the perspective of Laclaudian discourse analysis, these discussions accept the basic nodal points of the mask discussion: masks are effective protection from COVID-19, and COVID-19 is dangerous. Three partly overlapping main themes emerge from mask surveillance discussions: reports of people not wearing masks, the backlash against anti-masking behaviour, and criticism towards mask use policies or their lack of them.
The first theme concerns Twitter users reporting how other people wear masks in public. This usually refers to public transport, but also to aeroplanes and public places. These neutral discussions do not openly criticise those who don’t wear masks. Generally, the neutral tone was prevalent in discussions that occurred in August and September 2020, briefly after the Finnish mask recommendation was enacted:
I got on the tram and did a
survey. There were 46 passengers on the tram, of which, in addition to me, two passengers had a #face mask. (Tweet, 19 August 2024)
The second theme was about Twitter users openly criticising others for not wearing masks. Here the tone of discussions was annoyed or angry about people who do not use masks. Often these discussions are about people not using masks on public transport, but also in public places and in events:
These people don’t seem to be interested in other people’s #health. Of course, it’s not surprising when this group of fools opposes masks, #corona restrictions and thinks that the disease is a hoax. #covidiootit #menkääkotiin. (Tweet, 20 March 2024)
The third theme is about discussions in which Twitter users are critical about people not following mask recommendations of the government or grocery chains or event organisers not abiding by COVID-19 mask policies. The also criticise how these policies are enforced. In these discussions, they are generally critical about the lack of enforced mandatory mask-wearing policies, for example in the Christmas shopping.
All three themes have a common chain of equivalence, where mask wearing or abiding by mask recommendations is seen as the same as responsible behaviour.
Wearing mask = being responsible
These mask surveillance discussions add a nodal point to the existing pro-mask discourse. Here, COVID-19 is seen as a threat, masks are seen as effective against COVID, and wearing masks is seen as a responsibility. The explicit opposition of these mask surveillance discussions were people not wearing masks or organisations that do not have mask requirements or do not enforce mask requirements properly.
A sub-group discussion regarding politicians, political parties, and masks emerged in both mask surveillance and anti-mask discussions. This group or theme of discussions involves Twitter users accusing politicians of being anti-maskers because they were not wearing masks at some events. Curiously, in discussions related to this theme, the Twitter users accused both government and opposition party members of being anti-maskers. In Finnish mask discussions, ‘anti-masker’ is an accusation used by government and opposition parties against each other:
Ville Tavio [The Finns party] did not wear a mask during the group discussion or mention the coronavirus. Ano Turtiainen [The Finns party] complained and urged others to remove the “Chinese diapers” from the face. Just imagine if this group was in government, fighting pandemic. (Tweet, 9 February 2021)
It so happens that @KristaKiuru [Social Democrat, Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services] is watching the event without mask, social distancing or anything and planning restaurant restrictions for others. (Tweet, 16 July 2021)
Typically masks and mask-wearing were seen as a good thing: arguing explicitly or implicitly that mask-wearing keeps people safe. Masks were seen as protection and mask wearers protect themselves and other people, as something that helps to stop the pandemic, and as being responsible by following the rules. Not wearing a mask was linked to negative things. The explicit or implicit adversaries were the people who do not wear masks, considered irresponsible, selfish, dangerous and do not follow common rules, causing problems for the economy and causing responsible people to suffer. Sometimes the adversaries were, rather, the Government, authorities, grocery chains, or event organisers who do not enact or enforce mask-wearing policies, thus endangering people or, in the case of shops, customers and personnel. That is, Twitter users were blaming the government or other authorities for not making other people wear masks and protect them.
5 Conclusions
This chapter examined the hegemonic contestation in state-society relations by exploring the Finnish pandemic debates regarding face masks on Twitter in 2020 and 2021. Building on our previous work (Palonen and Koljonen, 2021) and a comprehensive dataset, we set out to examine the pandemic debates. We have presented a new research method of ‘peak analysis’ as part of the Anarcho-Computational Discourse Theoretical (AC/DT) approach, based on post-foundational discourse theory to analyse interpretively large datasets with a discursive overview and points of deep diving into the many tweets and discursive contestations in this period. This enabled us to divide the battle over the hegemonic interpretation of masks into three periods: pre-mask recommendation, normalised management, and consensus falling apart. Mask recommendations emerged during the first period, and mask surveillance and anti-mask discussions emerged during the second period. To unveil the richness of the discursive field in hegemonic struggles while looking at antagonistic confrontation, we were able to bring out a diversity of voices and perspectives.
Our novel approach reveals how, during the first period, the Finnish public on Twitter almost uniformly called for mask recommendations, contesting the lack of official recommendations that masks be worn. This counter-hegemonic discourse regarded the mask recommendation as the sole effective method to encourage the consistent use of masks in daily life and thus protect people from infections. The main arguments for enacting the mask recommendation were science-based claims for mask recommendation/ mask mandate, international experiences, and masks as a way of opening society and protecting the economy. At the same time, the government paraded a scientific study that argued that there is no full evidence that face masks would be useful. Both sides were making their arguments based on science.
After the government adopted a policy that recommended masks in August 2020, the mask discussions on Twitter also changed. Now, they focused on the perceived laxity of mask recommendations concerning schools and children, as well as discussions about mask responsibility, where it was argued that wearing masks and following mask recommendations and other precautions were acts of responsibility. We should note for international comparison that the youngest children, up to circa 9-year-olds in Finnish schools, were not obliged to wear masks, and primary schools had a relatively short lockdown period in spring 2020.
In the third period, anti-mask discussions emerged. These tweets contested the base premises of discourse by articulating that masks are dangerous, but COVID-19 is not. Masks and other COVID precautions were argued to be an infringement of liberty, or that the COVID-19 pandemic was a hoax, and a corrupted government or elites used it to do something else. This anti-establishment discourse thus contested both government and opposition positions regarding masks and COVID precautions.
The pro-mask and anti-mask discussions which emerged in Finland in 2020 and 2021 bear similarities with the German governmental crisis narrative and counter-narrative by Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) (see e.g. Fröchlich and Varga, 2024). As there, the pro-mask discourse in Finland portrayed opposition to anti-COVID-19 containment measures as a challenge to collective well-being. This discourse produced the counter-narrative, which similarly framed the pandemic not as threats to public health or security but to fundamental rights, individual freedoms, and self-determination. However, unlike in Germany, no major party in Finland challenged the basis of the COVID-19 discourse, in which the pandemic was seen as a threat and masks as an efficient way of protecting people from infections (Lehtonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2024). The counter-narrative was produced by marginal fringe actors and pseudo-anonymous Twitter accounts (Heikkilä, Laaksonen and Väliverronen, 2022).
The mask discussion timeline and mask recommendation analysis also show how the Twitter discussions related to masks did bear many similarities with parliamentary debates (Lehtonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2024). During the first year of the pandemic, there was a commonly shared perception of the threatening nature of the pandemic and masks as useful among other tools in fighting the pandemic. We contend that both elites and civil society widely shared this understanding, which facilitated responsiveness to the crisis (Lehtonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2024).
Our study unveiled an interesting dynamic of how the anti-mask stance of the government, coupled with scientific evidence, was contested by the hashtag public. Since August 2020, the government has rearticulated masks as something positive, moving this floating signifier to another discourse. By 2021, they were combatting the anti-mask sentiment, which had emerged as a counterhegemonic mobilisation using partly similar argumentation and even the Marin government’s anti-mask study as their range of references contesting the now more solid pro-mask status quo.
Thinking that disinformation or misinformation was prevalent during the pandemic, our study from Finland contests a black-and-white view on science-based politics. Rather, the governments were forced to deal with the pandemic in a situation of uncertainty, and several science-based options were always in discussion with the public as well as the elected opposition. In the Finnish case, the opposition found its voice after the initial period of consensus, and finally, the relatively popular Marin government was replaced in the general elections in 2023 by the opposition parties.
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This chapter was produced as part of the ENDURE Project and funded by the Academy of Finland via T-AP under Grant number 352413.