#CancelCulture
A critical discourse analysis of cancel culture and its effect on representation and voice.
Rozarina Bakher
Communication for Development One-year master 15 Credits Summer 2021 Supervisor: Jakob Svensson
Abstract
Cancel culture has been described by some as a form of online activism. It has also been argued as activism with both negative and positive effects. For the positive side, cancel culture has worked to emphasize the representation and voice of women during the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment at workplaces. On the other hand, cancel culture has a reputation for being "activism-for-bad" when it silences the voice of people that may contribute to the area of communication for development and social change. For example, it is said to have stifled academic freedom and restricted open debates in cultural institutions. The aim of this thesis is to examine how cancel culture determines whose representation and voice is heard, and has it evolved from being a tool of activism to one that is said to threaten democratic participation?
The thesis analyses six online articles that appears as the top results on Google Search during a specific timeline between the period of 2015 - 2021. These timelines were determined from Google Trends® by looking at when the term 'cancel culture' were trending highest on the internet. Applying methodological framework based on the theories of Critical Discourse Analysis, this thesis sets out to analyse words and terms used in these online articles that contributed to the discourse on cancel culture and analyses its relations to representation and voice.
Keywords: cancel culture, representation, voice, Google, critical discourse analysis.
Acknowledgement
I am dedicating this thesis to my family who made it possible for me to take part in this master's programme. Ole, my husband of 25 years, who sat patiently through my late evenings of reading. My three children Matthew, Jeremy and Benjamin who have shared their thoughts as millennials and Gen Z on cancel culture and walked me through a plethora of social media platforms such as TikTok® and Snapchat® on its uses and effectiveness. I did not manage to include all of it here except for what I can phantom from Twitter®, as Gen X.
This is also for all working moms who partake in part time study like me. The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown made our work more challenging. As my workload varied and the 24/7 being at home with the family for what seems forever with minimum time outside, has caused strain to both physical and mental health. Reaching this milestone of submitting the thesis gave me a boost of energy and a renewed confidence.
Lastly, to all the professors and lecturers at Malmö University who have patiently guided me throughout the course, thank you. I have learnt a lot from the Communication for Development program. The most striking is the self-reflection of being a product of postcolonialism. One of whom thinks and speaks in another language than their parents. A humbling journey.
Table of contents
2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.6. 2.7. 2.8.
Limitation to literature review Concepts in Cancel Culture and Research Questions Defining Cancel Culture
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Power and knowledge in representation and voice The internet as a cultural form for cancel culture Conclusion to literature review
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10 11
"Obama on Call-Out Culture": That's Not Activism" "Cancel Culture Is Not Real – At Least Not in the Way People Think"
25 28
"J.K. Rowling accused of transphobia after mocking 'people who menstruate'
34 37 39
5.5. 5.6. 5.7.
"A Letter on Justice and Open Debate" "It's time to cancel this talk of 'cancel culture'". Summary of CDA
Appendix 1: Google Trends search term 'cancel culture' from 1 January 2015 to 31 March
55 56 57
Appendix 2. Google Search returns for online articles for CDA for 2018 Appendix 3: Disclaimer Endnotes
List of figures
Figure 1.Fairclough 3-Dimensions CDA Figure 2. Cancel Culture searches on Google between 2015 - 2021
17 21
Figure 3. Own illustration of timeline of critical discourse analysis on cancel culture 44 Figure 4.Cancel culture 2015 - 2021 on Google Trends 54
1. Introduction
Cancel culture is a new phenomenon that needs to be better understood, hence this research aims to look at its development, and how the phenomenon of cancel culture can effect our understanding of representation and voice. Communication for development (C4D) in recent times has pushed for a more participatory approach to development and greater representation of voices from, for example those underrepresented and marginalized people. This is with the aim to foster meaningful social change by including representation and voice of these groups.
The thesis will be divided into several chapters. The first chapter will introduce and provide a brief background to the topic of cancel culture such as what it could mean to be cancelled by providing an example of the phenomenon from a social media post. The second chapter will feature selected literature reviews of relevant academic papers that have found to be covering and discussing cancel culture. During the literature review, an analysis of the development of cancel culture will be discussed in relation to representation and voice and aims to identify gaps in the study and propose the research questions.
Chapter three will discuss discourse theory as the thesis theoretical framework, followed by methodology and data collection on Chapter four. This chapter will also discuss how data will be retrieved online to help answer the research questions and provide explanation how cancel culture can affect certain communication for development matters such as representation and voice. In this chapter, limitations of the thesis research will also be discussed.
Chapter five will present and discuss the findings from the critical discourse analysis, followed by chapter six with conclusions and discussion on the implication of cancel culture for C4D with regard to representation and voice.
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1.1. Background
"They came first for the Communist, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionist, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."
Martin Niemöller, Lutheran Pastor, 1892-1984
I chose to feature the above poetic form of Niemöller post-war confessional prose as it touches on the topic of my thesis's discussion pertaining to the ethos practised in communication for development (C4D), namely representation and voice. The words have been analysed numerous times before on its message, and while I do not dwell in depth of its origin, I chose it because it provides food-for-thought towards the concept of representation and voice, and why it matters to people.
While the availability of new media and technology such as Google® and social media platforms such as Twitter® holds the potential and opportunities for popular participation, democracy and for the increase of transparency and accountability, digital platforms are also the battlefield for the usual power struggle including the social justice of marginalized and minority groups. Digital harassment in all its forms is a strategy to silence people. Cancel culture in recent times, has become a form of an online harassment that has been said to instil fear and threatened certain groups from speaking up and participating in open debates. For example, a 2017 survey by Amnesty International1 which looked at the experiences of women between the ages of 18 and 55 across several countries reported that 23% of the women surveyed have experienced online abuse or harassment at least once. The same survey also mentioned that 32% of
2these women, will stop posting content that expressed opinion on certain issues due to online harassments. Included among this statistic are female activists of minority backgrounds.
In December of 20192, J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, tweeted her support to Maya Forstater of how unfair it was for her to lose her job for questioning the UK's government decision to allow people to declare their own gender. Forstater is a known vocal of 'TERF, short for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. TERF are supporter of a political movement arguing that transgender women are men and should be exempt from the legal and social protections afforded to women who are biologically assigned female at birth. As the result of this, Rowling was purportedly cancelled for showing her support to the group. The Harry Potter franchise was affected, with fans withdrawing support, book signing events cancelled and she was called a transphobic. Upon reading this article, I learnt of a new form of gender activism group called 'TERF'. Prior to this event, I did not know of this group's activism, so how does this new form of activism and its representation for voicing gender identity, challenges other people's normative understandings of gender in general? What was previously accepted largely by most people on representation, such as what we know as the biological sex of a female and male, could possibly be changed through the cancel culture movement.
The thesis aims to study the development of cancel culture discussion on the internet by using primarily online technology, Google search engine to find relevant articles on cancel culture and then analyse how it has affected our understanding around representation and voice. In the next chapter we begin to establish some concepts of cancel culture, representation and voice by reviewing available literature.
2. Literature Review
Cancel culture is a new and is a hot topic that is also being discussed at political level, especially in the US. As an example, during the 2020 Republican National Convention, at least eleven senate members have brought up cancel culture in their speeches
3addressing it as an alarming phenomenon. Since it is a new topic, how it will effect representation and voice would be difficult to establish without understanding what is being discussed or have been discussed. Hence, the purpose of the literature review is to understand concepts of cancel culture, representation and voice that can lead to finding patterns and trends in the discourse of cancel culture.
2.1. Limitation to literature review
Making sense of cancel culture and what effects it has to the matters of representation and voice in online discussions, has proven to be difficult due to the limited availability of peer-reviewed academic literature. Initial searches for suitable peer-reviewed academic references within the period of 2015 and 2020, with keyword "Cancel culture" on Ebsco via Malmo's University's libsearch service, returned only nine academic literatures. These scholar journals were discussing cancel culture covering the area from media, behavioural science and political science studies. Applying the same search term on Google Scholar led to the same literary results, however, a larger number of online journalistic opinion pieces from established media publications such as The New York Times, Time and CNN were available.
Based on this, the academic literature review section will begin with summarizing these nine literatures which is listed chronologically in the references. The literature review focuses on investigating historical works and how the specific issue, in this case cancel culture, developed over time. It is worth noting here that all academic literature found was published in the course of 2020 and no related literature was found from prior years that specifically used the term "cancel culture". Due to the newness, it is therefore beneficial to study the cancel culture phenomenon and establish its relation to the C4D idea of representation and voice.
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2.2. Concepts in Cancel Culture and Research Questions
This section of the literature review is used to find threads on the discussion of cancel culture and gain understanding of concepts, as well as to get inspiration for what are the themes to analyse. From there, an open, inquisitive research question guides the analysis; I am looking to understand and explore the concepts within cancel culture and its relations to C4D practise of representation and voice.
2.3. Defining Cancel Culture
To cancel in broad terms is understood as the act to withdraw support to an individual, a group or an organization, due to the fact that these individuals, group or organization have committed something offensive (Ng,2020:623). The act of cancelling is meant as a punishment to those who have been deemed to have misbehaved, by another opposing group. The concept of a cancel culture can be defined broadly as attempts to ostracize someone for violating social norms (Norris,2020:10). To be cancelled in broad term is understood as having been publicly shamed and made to be held accountable for an offensive behaviour. These can be through the losing of support by previous supporters or sponsors even at the risk of losing one's means to make a living (Holman,2020:17). Cancel culture is also a method of communicating evolving social norms (ibid:64).
While cancel culture has been said to be a form to allow for the seeking of social justice by underrepresented groups by holding those in power accountable (Clark,2020:91; Ng,2020:622), it has also been described as a form of digital vigilantism (Chiou,2020:297). It has developed into an obsession by a certain group to punish others that holds a different set of values to them. Digital vigilantism is a process where citizens are collectively offended by other citizens' activity, and coordinate retaliation on mobile devices and social platforms (Trottier,2015:1). Cancel culture is also said to have a double-edge sword (Chiou,2020:297) which has worked for people who previously were unable to speak up against oppression, racism, sexism and other forms of discriminatory practises. On the other hand, it has also worked against the freedom of certain people
5to express their differing opinions and allow for a democratic discussion on specific matters (Norris,2020:14).
Cancel culture has in recent times posed a threat towards the erasing of history, such as the recent social movement of #BlackLivesMatter, where countless statues of former slave owners were vandalized (B. Duque et. al.2020:10) and the increasing demand for any mention of them in the public domain and records be erased. For example, a state school board in San Francisco, USA have voted for the removal of the names of former US presidents and other American founding fathers, which are mostly white males, from forty-four local public schools, due to ties to racism3. On the other hand, the #MeToo movement is a social activism used by sexual harassment victims to bring about social justice to their perpetrators (Holman,2020:16; Ng,2020:623). It brought awareness on the norms within the entertainment industry where the safety of women seeking fair and decent work were abused by powerful men. For example, as seen in the case Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby. In summary, defining cancel culture it is not a straightforward task as while it aims at silencing offensive voices, it has also brought about awareness of pervasive norms in a society. The thesis will explore cancel culture to the C4D concept of representation and voice.
2.4. Representation and Voice
Communication for development speaks often of the importance of the concept of representation and voice in development and social change. Representation is understood as the concept that connects meaning and language to culture (Hall,2013:1). From the abovementioned definition of cancel culture, it is understood that representation is important to analyse why a group of people is opposing the view of another group of people. In Hall's, representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture (ibid,1).
In the literature review, we see discussion of representation in the discourse of cancel culture. The perception that an NGO as an agency to speak on climate issues is seen as
6a more valid representative opinion that will increase Twitter likes and shareability on the subject (Nguyen,2020:13). How a lesbian character is portrayed on a TV show cannot be written by a cis straight white male as it is not deemed as a representative experience of the group as displayed by the queer female community cancelling their support for a TV show (Ng,2020:623). Hall stated that to belong to a culture is to belong to roughly the same conceptual and linguistic universe, to know how concepts and ideas translate into different languages, and how language can be interpreted to refer to or reference the world (2013:8).
Cancel culture is said to have silenced the voices of conservatives and diverse perspectives especially on college campuses which has a tradition of adopting classical liberal values and policy for tolerance of non-conformity and is connected to the threat of freedom of speech (Norris,2020:4). Norris conducted the World Political Science (WPS-2019) survey, with 2,446 responses collected from scholars studying or working in 102 countries (ibid,5). In one of her findings using a Cancel Culture index was that American scholar on the moderate right and far right report experiencing worsening pressures to be politically correct, limits on academic freedom, and in lack of respect for open debate (ibid,12). Further, Norris explained that this was not simply another case of American exceptionalism; in the pooled sample across all the post-industrial countries, more rightwing [sic] political scientists reported that, in their own experience, the cancel culture had worsened in recent years (ibid).
Cancel culture also allows for on one hand, the celebration of minority voices, while on the other hand, constraining the voice of white males (B. Duque et. al,2020:11). Having a voice is important as a way to decode representation in development and it is important to consider not just voice and the process of valuing voice, it is also important to understand what voice and agency means in the complexities of everyday life for populations who are marginalized and disadvantaged. However, the material conditions that people experienced lead them to strategically manage their representations according to their specific conditions and context, and this raises question about the
