@article{discovery10143552,
          number = {3},
            year = {2022},
         journal = {Learning, Media and Technology},
           pages = {398--406},
           title = {Digital masks: screens, selves and symbolic hygiene in online higher education},
       publisher = {Informa UK Limited},
            note = {This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.},
          volume = {47},
        keywords = {Screens, asynchronous teaching, pandemic, Goffman, masks},
             url = {https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2022.2039940},
          author = {Gourlay, Lesley},
        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.}
}