Facial Expression behind the Mask

Abstract

The COVID-19 Pandemic has changed our lifestyle drastically and it is ‘new normal’ now. Wearing a face mask in public places has become mandatory. Though many people used to wear facemask in public places for various reasons, it was not considered as an etiquette. In the olden days wearing a mask in many places was considered as inappropriate due to safety and identification issues. The vaccine for COVID-19 has already started and COVID-19 may be eradicated soon, but wearing a mask is going to be part of the lifestyle due to a number of reasons. A new pandemic is expected any time, due to pollution and we have experienced and scientifically proved that viral diseases are very less since we started wearing masks. In this research, the problem of face-to-face communication while wearing face masks will be analysed. The movement of the muscles on the face plays an important role in the communication process. When we wear a mask the lower parts of the face including the part of the nose, mouth, jaws and part of the cheeks are not visible. The muscle movements of these parts of the face play an important role in the communication process. The messages otherwise conveyed through facial expression need to be spoken. Spoken communication no longer gets the support of facial expression. The real question is how the communicators overcome this situation. At the end of the research it will be clear that facial expression helped the communicators in expressing their ideas.