‘Stop the Spread’: Criminalizing Physical Recreation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study expounds on the media’s role in legitimating criminalization, lateral surveillance, and stigmatization as the appropriate response to violating public health restrictions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Specifically, our qualitative content analysis of news articles (n = 66) reveals how media echoed politicians’ calls to “stop the spread” of the virus by making personal sacrifices, relied heavily on law enforcement sources when telling stories relating to non-compliance, and routinely excluded the voices of those disproportionately impacted by public health restrictions and the concomitant expansion of social control. At times, news media stories failed to name violations explicitly or employed ambiguous phrasing to downplay the structural problems associated with pandemic conditions. Taken together, we suggest news media coverage of pandemic sport violations upholds punitive ideologies, conceals the social determinants of health and structural barriers to physical recreation opportunities, and legitimates the amorphous expansion and diffusion of social control.