Exploring the Social Dynamics of Public Stigmatization in China of Wuhanese During the Initial Outbreak of COVID-19: A Moral Panic Analysis

ABSTRACT

During the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in China in 2019 and 2020, the Wuhanese suffered tremendous public stigmatization. Why and how did the general public in China develop such strong feelings against the Wuhanese? To address these questions and understand the social forces underlying this phenomenon, a moral panic analysis was conducted. Using a mixed-method design, this research examined the scale and mechanisms of the public stigmatization of the Wuhanese as ‘the folk devil’ of a moral panic and identified the social factors (social media, the collective memory of SARS, and the influence of close relations) which produced and facilitated the initial panic and subsequent public stigmatization. Through its presentation and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, this article explains how public stigmatization has served as an effective social control instrument in China during the COVID-19 outbreak, used to contain the disease, garner strong public support for the government authorities, legitimize extreme methods used to implement containment policies, and monitor and restrict the population.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• China
• public stigmatization
• moral panic analysis
• Wuhan/Wuhanese
• social control

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

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⁷ Here, ‘Wuhanese’ refers to a diverse group of people associated with the Wuhan province during the initial COVID-19 outbreak. This group includes Wuhan residents, recent visitors to or returnees from Wuhan, and Wuhanese living outside Wuhan.

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⁴⁶ Figure 1 also incorporates qualitative themes of stereotypes of Wuhanese people.

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⁶⁵ Ibid.

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⁶⁸ Qiulan Chen, et al., ‘Rapid and Sustained Containment of Covid-19’.

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⁷⁰ Ben-Yehuda Nachman, ‘The Sociology of Moral Panics’.

⁷¹ Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics, p. 9.

⁷² Yazheng Di, et al., ‘Stigma toward Wuhan People during the COVID-19 Epidemic’.

Additional information

Funding

The paper was funded by the Fellowship from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (project no. 2021M691521), MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Youth Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (project No.: 20×JC840001), and 2020 Young Teacher Development Project from the Chinese Universities Scientific Fund (project no. 230600001002020030). The funders have no role in the research design, the writing of the article, or the decision to submit the article.