This paper will explore the multi-modal semiotic properties of a selection of key public health information posters issued by the UK Westminster government on the use of masks and face coverings during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using multi-modal critical discourse analysis, we show how the posters featuring masks sustained consistent government-led branding, while drawing upon what we describe as “synthetic personalisation” to manage the orientation of the crisis as the pandemic progressed. Through this analysis, the article will highlight the possible contribution of these posters to an environment characterised by political confusion and enabling of a relatively widespread rejection of mask-wearing as a public health responsibility. Examining this within a broader decline in trust in government, we suggest the various attempts to produce a positive message about mask-wearing contributed instead to the appropriation of masks as symbols of individual alignment within a contested political field.

本文将探讨英国威斯敏斯特政府发布的关于在 COVID-19 大流行的第一年使用口罩和面罩的一系列关键公共卫生信息海报的多模式符号特性。通过多模式批判性话语分析，我们展示了以面具为特色的海报如何保持一致的政府主导品牌，同时利用我们所说的“综合个性化”来管理危机的方向，以应对大流行的发展。通过这一分析，本文将强调这些海报可能对一个以政治混乱为特征的环境做出的贡献，以及导致相对广泛地拒绝将戴口罩作为公共卫生责任的环境。在对政府的信任度下降的范围内检查这一点，