“Wearing a mask or not” goes beyond a public health issue in the U.S.

Figures & data

Table 1. Comment sources and amounts

News Title	Masks Become a Flash Point in the Virus Culture Wars	Will Americans wear masks to prevent coronavirus spread? Politics, history, race and crime factor into tough decision	Why do so many Americans refuse to wear face masks? Politics is part of it—but only part	Employees Become Enforcers Of Mask Require ments As Tensions Grow	Mask wearing leads to several violent confronta tions	National COVID-19 outbreak accelerate as Walmart, Kroger implement mandatory mask rules
Media	The New York Times	The Washington Post	Market Watch	NBC Nightly News	ABC News	CBS This Morning
No. of Comments	277	203	279	188	278	355

Table 2. Amount of main themes

Theme	Mask effectiveness	Respect, protection, care	Freedom, rights	Politicization, polarization	Anti-science, anti- intellectualism
Amount	105	237	133	166	272

Note: The total amount of themes will not sum to the amount of comments because some comments indicate multiple themes, while some comments are irrelevant to masks.

Figure 1. Inner contrasts of main themes

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.