ROZARINA BAKHER #CANCELCULTURE A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF CANCEL CULTURE AND ITS EFFECT ON REPRESENTATION AND VOICE - DIVA
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
#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
1. Introduction 1
1.1. Background 2
2. Literature Review 3
2.1. Limitation to literature review 4
2.2. Concepts in Cancel Culture and Research Questions 5
2.3. Defining Cancel Culture 5
2.4. Representation and Voice 6
2.5. Power and knowledge in representation and voice 8
2.6. The internet as a cultural form for cancel culture 10
2.7. Conclusion to literature review 11
2.8. Research questions 13
3. Theoretical Framework 14
3.1. Discourse theory 14
3.2. Critical discourse analysis 16
4. Methodology 16
4.1. Data collection 18
4.2. Limitation of analysis 19
5. Critical discourse analysis of the articles 20
5.1. "Everyone is canceled" 22
5.2. "Obama on Call-Out Culture": That's Not Activism" 25
5.3. "Cancel Culture Is Not Real – At Least Not in the Way People Think" 28
5.4. "J.K. Rowling accused of transphobia after mocking 'people who menstruate'
headline." 30
5.5. "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate" 34
5.6. "It's time to cancel this talk of 'cancel culture'". 37
5.7. Summary of CDA 39
6. Conclusion 43
6.1. Implication for C4D and representation and voice 46
References 47
Bibliography 50
Appendix 1: Google Trends search term 'cancel culture' from 1 January 2015 to 31 March
2021 54
Appendix 2. Google Search returns for online articles for CDA for 2018 55
Appendix 3: Disclaimer 56
Endnotes 57
List of figures Figure 1.Fairclough 3-Dimensions CDA 17 Figure 2. Cancel Culture searches on Google between 2015 - 2021 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.
11.1. 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.
42.2. 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
7idea of giving people a voice is always straightforwardly positive (Tacchi (2016), cited in
Hemer & Tufte, pp.117-128). Material conditions are what matters in a society such as
education, health services, or access to technology for example. This can be understood
as that representation and voice is largely depending on what people perceived as
important. Some may desire to not be called out openly to discuss matters they lack
knowledge of, and signal a need for deeper understanding of when, how and why voice
matters (Krebs,2020:30). Speaking up against bad corporate practises can be seen as
confrontational instead of promoting good dialogue (Nguyen,2020:41). In short, voice is
sometimes not equal. For example, those who have knowledge, may not wish to speak
up and provide their voice for fear of being cancelled. While those who do make their
voice heard, may not have the necessary knowledge. Quite often, the loudest voices are
not necessarily the most accurate voice and could be a sign of just having power in
numbers. In cancel culture as it is online, power could mean a larger follower on e.g.,
Twitter. The thesis will explore the concept of power and knowledge in cancel culture
below.
2.5. Power and knowledge in representation and voice
Clark examines cancel culture as a digital discursive accountability praxis, from its origin
in Black oral tradition to its misappropriation by social elites (2020:88). She began with
a definition of what it means to be 'cancelled' by contextualizing the power relations
that inform the assumption of an equitable public sphere and explored the
intersectionality theory to explicate the roots of Black digital discursive practise (ibid).
According to Clark, cancel culture is situated within the Habermasean concept of the
public sphere which assumes public discourse is the realm of the elites, hence such as
act of cancelling or boycotting are mediated processes limited both in scope and
effectiveness by factors of structural power, time, and access to resources. Any
examination of cancel culture must include the perspectives that prioritized the
communications histories and practises of disempowered people (ibid,89). This is
significant to the discourse of cancel culture as Clark explores the concept of the
8antecedent of cancel culture which was boycott. Boycotting has been understood as the
analogue act of cancelling i.e., an act not relying on the use of the internet to gather
support towards collective refusal to have a dealing with a person or corporation that
has done something wrong. Clark touched on Harper's Magazine "A Letter on Justice and
Open Debate" published in July 2020, where several notable public figures spoke out
against the development of cancel culture as a threat to weaken current norms of open
debate and tolerance of differences in favour of ideological conformity by signing the
open letter. The idea of cancel culture as implied by the letter according to Clark is as a,
'phenomena uniquely enabled by capitalism's demand on the media production side,
and on the audience side, by our connectivity to social media'(ibid,90)
Social media has been a place where journalists with the ability to amplify unremarkable
conversations, have extracted and decontextualized so many rich traditions of Black
communicative practice to meet the demand for media content that will draw a lot of
readers' attention, while failing to provide adequate cultural context to explain why
these debates are and should be a part of mainstream public discourse. The absence of
deliberation in chastising bad actors, misconstrued as the outcome of cancel culture, is
a fault of the elites’ inability to adequately conceive of the impact social media
connectivity has for shifting the power dynamics of the public sphere in the digital age
(ibid,91).
When it comes to power and knowledge relations, and example how the lack of
experiential knowledge if a person disabled from birth has more right to empathy than
a person who became disabled later by an accident, has excluded able-bodied people
from participating in the conversation (Kerbs,2020:308). It discusses how a born-
disabled character distinguishes himself as different than those handicapped later in
their life by an accident. This example also suggests even within in-groups in this context,
a disabled person, can apply the concept of 'difference' as implored in Hall's; The
Spectacle of Others (1997:235). Bouvier discusses how racism is considered a personal
trait rather than a collective belief of a nation and racists acts are often associated with
9having a lack of education (2020:5) and this is a knowledge formed by those who
considers themselves morally superior to others (Chiou,2020:297).
2.6. The internet as a cultural form for cancel culture
Foucault ideology on power and knowledge urges us to explore the relation of culture
within in-group behaviours, coding and the community's social code. He saw power in
terms of ownership and that the owners of discourse were the owners of power. There
are power relations in in-groups and the internet has developed a cultural form for
underrepresented groups to voice their opinions. The role of media and communication
in development, according to Manyozo, is to provide contestation that draws attention
to participation, policy and power. Its role “is to offer a platform where people can
contest both political and economic power to enable them to transform specific
development systems to their benefit” (Manyozo 2012:10).
While some definition of new media focuses exclusively upon computer technologies
while others stress the cultural forms and contexts in which technologies are used, for
example, art, film, commerce, science and the Internet (Dewdney & Peter, 2006:8-9).
Lev Manovich has a more open view to looking at new media as anything which can
contain technology that enable digital generative or interactive processes such as
computer games, websites, and human-computer interfaces (Manovich,2003:6). Social
media and social networking services such as Twitter are a good example of new media
in which it promotes users’ interactions and participation . Technology mirrors the
society that creates it, and access to technologies is affected by intersecting spectrums
of exclusion including gender, ethnicity, age, social class, geography, and disability
(O’Donnell & Sweetman,2018:217). Yang argues that as with other cultural forms such
as television, the Internet is subject to external influences, and is especially susceptible
to social influences because of the logic of social production (2009:111). Social
production, according to Yang, is the process whereby Internet users contribute to the
Internet economy by producing non-proprietary content online such as writing blogs
10and Twitter posts can be included as social production (ibid). On the internet being a
global cultural form, affordance theory suggests that the use of social media such as
Twitter are relational to experience, skills and cultural understanding of the users (Zheng
& Yu, 2016:292). Twitter's potential as a platform to support the voice of social justice
was proven to be inadequate due to ephemeral behaviour of those engaging in post
threads (Bouvier,2020:9).
2.7. Conclusion to literature review
All the academic literature has within it the same messaging that cancel culture is an
online phenomenon that has the working as a social media activism for marginalized
groups. However, these literature discusses how cancel culture also worked as a form
of digital harassment. Nguyen discusses how Twitter has given companies a new tool to
engage with customers, but also provided a space for grassroot activist for climate
change (2020:7). Holman's thesis discusses how cancel culture is an act of
communication evolving social norms whereby comedians are no longer 'immune' when
they perform sexist and racist jokes (2020:64), however cancellation rarely stay in effect
as those cancelled often are seen to return to performing e.g., Louis C.K. (ibid,48). Cancel
culture was made as an example how digital practises often follow a trajectory of being
initially embraced as empowering to being denounced as digital ills (Ng,2020:621). Ng
discusses the role of cancel culture as the zeal for ideological purity and the loss of
reasonable scale of transgression within the movement, that is the same treatment is
meted out to someone who made a single problematic post years ago to someone with
an established pattern of sexual harassment such as Weinstein (ibid,623). The
movement is said to have gone too far especially on college campuses and has
threatened classis liberal values, which champions tolerance of non-conformity and
freedom of speech (Norris,2020:1). In a paper discussing a satire cartoon show 'South
Park', and how the creator of the show is spared in the era of cancel culture despite the
show habitual takes on polarizing political satire and often on taboo and offensive topic
such as racism. This was due to the show's ability to routinely feature material that
11discusses signifiers like ability, age, class, gender, race, religion and sexuality and the
relationship those signifiers have with various encompassing social structures, including
those that are hegemonic in nature (Krebs, 2020:314).
Cancel culture seems to bring with it an array of issues when it comes to representation
and voice. It brought about awareness of the struggle by the people of colour,
particularly African Americans on police brutality during the #BlackLivesMatter
movement. It has also evolved from being an activism discussed only in meta-networked
communities such as in 'Black Twitter', to being discussed in the mainstream media
(Clark,2020:89). Clark defines 'Black Twitter' as a network of culturally connected
communicators using the platform to draw attention to issues of concern to black
communities4. Cancel culture has also been said to have metamorphosed from being a
tool for the seeking of social justice and advocating behavioural change to a tool for
punishing those with opposing views and ideas, as per Norris's (2020):
On the one hand, this strategy can be justified as an effective tool for achieving
social justice by victims unable to obtain legal redress or public apology.
Examples include the MeToo boycotts directed against powerful sexual predators
alleged to have repeatedly committed harassment (ibid,2). On the other,
however, critics argue that the movement has gone too far, especially on college
campuses, so that it now threatens classical liberal values at the heart of
academic life. As exemplified in On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, liberalism
champions tolerance of non-conformity and freedom of speech, even for, or
indeed especially for, especially for the expression of deeply unpopular and
contrarian opinions (ibid,3).
The determinant of who is represented and whose voice is being heard on the internet,
largely depends on who is behind the keyboard engaging in cancel culture debates
(Bouvier,2020; Nguyen,2020). Clark also discusses the use of boycott by black
community such as during the Civil Right movement, and according to Clark, it is the
analog antecedent of the online cancelling (2020:89). Boycotts does have the similar
12workings as cancel culture e.g., it aims to gather support from others and or the public
with the interest to raise awareness of offensive behaviours of a specific person or a
group. The significant difference is that boycott is associated with analog actions such
as the physical signing of a petition and the spreading of flyers and posters to gain
attention. Cancel culture is associated with online activities on social media platforms
such as clicks, likes and shares to get attention with the aim to cause reputational
damage to another group or person for offensive behaviours. However, the #MeToo
movement for example have begun to take place in 2017 and why despite the cancel
culture predecessor, the boycott's successes, that cancel culture suddenly becomes a
contested idea in 2021?
The thesis aims to fill gaps in understanding the determinants that shifted the cancel
culture phenomenon from being a social justice tool to one that is said to be another
form of digital harassment. The next chapter will discuss the research question that will
guide this thesis research.
2.8. Research questions
The first research question seeks to understand the relations between cancel culture
and who are involve. As an understudied topic in C4D, the first research question aims
to lay further concepts to cancel culture and its relation to representation and voice.
Q1. How does cancel culture determine whose representation and voice is heard?
The second research question seeks to understand the relations to events happening
outside and the development of discourse on cancel culture. As we see from the
literature review above, cancel culture is said to have a double-edge sword effect where
it worked for voicing up against oppression but also can restrict the freedom of certain
people to express their differing opinion. Could external effects online discussions on
cancel culture and led to its transformation?
13Q2. Does external events effect cancel culture discourse online?
The above research questions will guide the thesis aim to understand the discourse
cancel culture and its relations to C4D representation and voice. To begin answering the
question above, I propose the discourse theory as the thesis theoretical framework to
begin analysing the thesis research questions. As the concept power and knowledge in
representation and voice was established from the literature review, discourse theory
would be beneficial to answer the question. With reference to Hall, representation is
the connections of meaning and language to culture and discourse theory proposes that
the way people write and speak is shaped by the structure of power in our society
(Macdonell,1986). Based on this, the next chapter will explore discourse theory in detail
and plan for the methodology to answer the research questions.
3. Theoretical Framework
3.1. Discourse theory
Discourse is defined by Michel Foucault as ways of constituting knowledge, together
with social practises, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere such
knowledges and relations between them. According to Foucault, it is through discourse
(through knowledge) that we are created; and that discourse joins power and
knowledge, and its power follows from our casual acceptance of the "reality with which
we are presented" (Foucault,1977, cited in Pitsoe et al 2013:24). Foucault explains the
relations of power and knowledge, such as those who have power of what is known and
the way it is known and those who have such knowledge have power over those who
don't. Foucault power-knowledge concept showed how specific opinions came to be
formed and preserved as what is today commonly called the hegemonic discourse, that
is as the dominant viewpoint(s) throughout society, kept stable by political power
dynamics (MacDonald 2003:32).
14Stuart Hall has also written on the complex structure of relations to understand the issue
of representation, difference and power. Power is seen in representation as not only
power to mark or classify but also as in broader cultural or symbolic terms, including the
power to represent someone or something in a certain way (Hall, 2013:247). Discourse
analysis is useful for studying written or spoken language and its relation to a social
context, with the aim to analyse and understand how language use relates to social,
political and historical context, as well as understands how cultural rules such as values,
belief and assumption are communicated. Discourse analysis is sometimes defined as
the analysis of language beyond the boundaries of a sentence or utterance
(Stubbs,1983:1), i.e., to understand how context affects the meaning of a sentence.
However, Foucault discourse has its criticism, as Foucault is less concerned with the
distinction between the discursive and the non-discursive in his genealogical writings.
Discursive practices are said to be ideological in so far as they contribute to the
naturalization of contingently constructed meanings. Social classes and ethnic groups
produce ideological discourses to maintain their hegemonic power or establish a
counter-hegemony. Hence, ideological discourse contributes not only to the
reproduction of social and political order but also to its transformation
(Torfings,2005:7).
Discourse creates the conditions for the formation of subjects and the structuring and
shaping of societies throughout all the time by functioning as the flow of knowledge or
as the whole of stored societal knowledge (Jäger (1993), cited in Wodak & Meyer).
Understanding the effect that discourse has on society's creation of concepts is vital in
discovering how the two are connected, thus discourse is not restricted to spoken and
written language but is extended to a wider set of social practices such as in the working
of critical discourse analysis developed consistently by Norman Fairclough
(Torfings,2005:6).
153.2. Critical discourse analysis
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) in its essence is critical meaning it looks beyond the
mere methodological aspect of analysis and incorporates an aspect of social theory
(Eriksson,2016:10). Wodak and Meyer defined CDA as,
In general, CDA is characterised by a number of principles (see above): for example, all
approaches are problem oriented, and thus necessarily interdisciplinary and eclectic.
Moreover, CDA is characterised by the common interests in demystifying ideologies and
power through the systematic and retroductable investigation of semiotic data (written,
spoken or visual). CDA researchers also attempt to make their own positions and
interests explicit while retaining their respective scientific methodologies and while
remaining self-reflective of their own research process (Wodak and Meyer,2009:3).
CDA is also concerned on how power is exercised through language. It is an
interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of
social practice, and Fairclough assumed that any case of language is a communicative
event. Wodak's discourse-historical approach also views discourse as a form of social
practice. Discourse affects society, and as the Fairclough concept, society also effects
discourse (Wodak & Meyer, 2009:17). According to Wodak (ibid:20), an important tenet
of CDA is that all discourses are historical and can therefore be understood with
reference to their context, which try to make sense that discourse is connected with
other communicative events which are happening at the same time, or which have
happened before.
4. Methodology
Taking inspiration from Fairclough CDA and Wodak's historical-discourse theory, the
focus of the thesis will be on the written languages in articles found online, using mainly
the Fairclough 3-dimensions model as guidance for the analysis.
16Figure 1.Fairclough 3-Dimensions CDA
Fairclough defines text as speeches, writing or images and visuals, and the discourse
analysis is at the word level analysis at what words and characters are chosen when the
writer chooses to speak or write. The word chosen also shows the attitude of the writer
to the subject. Discursive practice is the production of text, and the analysis takes place
at the text level and language as a community. Text builds social communities and by
using specific words and phrases, it can help those reading it feel engaged and
understood, however text can also determine underlying biases through study of the
words. Social practice is about standards and norms of the society and analysis of social
practice will contextualize the articles, looking at how they affect or are affected by the
society in which they appear. Text as a product has the property of absorbing the
characteristics of the social environment from which it was produced. As the social
context changes over time, the discourse follows the same change (Fairclough 2010:
173). Fairclough's CDA assumes that languages help to create change and can be used
to change behaviour, thus language becomes a powerful tool. The Fairclough model can
be difficult to understand and works differently between cultures, and sometimes it is
about what is not being written. The model is also useful when you need to figure out
17what the sender wants to convey to the recipients and what behaviour does the sender
wants from the recipients, however this thesis will be limited to text analysis by looking
at words used to describe or speak on the matter of representation and voice from the
selected online articles.
4.1. Data collection
I aim to analyse written articles found online to understand the development of cancel
culture and answer the research questions of its relations to C4D representation and
voice. First, I will use Google Trends to analyse the development searches on cancel
culture on the internet. The aim is to determine a timeline when cancel culture is a
trending topic online. From this, I will list which are the periods when cancel culture is
trending high and find available online articles during these dates. As cancel culture
tends to happen online, it is beneficial to this thesis to analyse online discourse through
critically analysing online articles and of any Twitter post mentioned in these articles. An
online article also has wider audience reach than print. Choosing Google as my preferred
search engines as it is recognized as the world's leading search engine with 86.6% market
share5. Google Trends is a feature that shows how often a given search term is entered
into Google’s search engine relative to the site’s total search volume over a given period
of time. Google Trends can be used for comparative keyword research and to discover
what event has triggered spikes in the keyword search volume, and its use have been
useful in e.g. in infodemiology study for public health issues (Mavragani et. al, 2018)
The search return should have at least =1 in the Google Trends monthly result between
January 2015 to March 2021. A =0 shows that a keyword search is low, while over >100
shows peak high search volume. We will concentrate on =1 for indication of minimum
required spike, and then concentrate on searches in "cancel culture" where the return
should give higher than >50 and up to >100. I saved the Google Trends analysis as .csv
file on my computer and created a chart showing its development (See Figure 2)
18The aim with this methodology is first to discover when are cancel culture searches are
high on the internet from the Google Trends results between January 2015 to March
2021. From then I will identify online articles that appear during these searches spikes
to analyse the content and discuss its contribution to the discourse of cancel culture and
relate them to representation and voice. While Google Trends have been able to provide
a fast and valuable information for this thesis in term of highest search volume, it has its
limitation. Among this are for example the data is anonymised and reflect those with
internet access (V.S Arora et. al, 2020:340). This could potentially exclude vulnerable
groups which can include marginalized people without access to internet (ibid,340).
4.2. Limitation of analysis
Critical discourse analysis often provides a researcher the free pass to make a conclusion
to an analysis according to their own subjectivity, which can lead to biases and ethical
mistakes. Some of the challenges to discourse theory are that it needs to demonstrate
the analytical value in empirical study to avoid lapsing into a self-indulgent theoreticism
(Torfing, 2005:25). The thesis only focuses on English language sites in particular the
USA, and though the topic of the research, cancel culture, has transcended into other
countries during my writing this paper, I have to exclude it due to time constraint. I am
aware that the choice of using Google as a data collection tool may have been formed
by my own bias as someone who is familiar with its workings. In addition, I acknowledge
my own limitation of knowledge on certain social norms and practises of activism that
is in the discussion of cancel culture such as of transgender and the LGBTQ movement,
may be the reason behind the potential lack of argumentation that I can provide when
speaking of the effect cancel culture on the groups' representation and voice in
reference to C4D field. By adopting reflexivity, a "self-understanding about biases,
values and experiences", during this data collection process, I acknowledge these factors
could shape my findings (see Creswell & Poth, 2018:229).
Given the time I have and the limited availability of peer-reviewed academically written
materials on cancel culture. And it is a topic that is changing daily, I deem it was
19beneficial to conduct a critical discourse analysis and apply a thematic approach on the online articles found. I will begin by analysing the first article found online to use the term 'cancel culture' and the latest found in March of 2021 to give me sufficient time to analyse the texts and present my findings. 5. Critical discourse analysis of the articles The analysis will focus on each of the articles separately. Each article will be put through Fairclough's CDA scope: text, discursive practice and social practice. The focus is on references on words that have relations or bring some meaning to the concept of representation and voice. From Google Trends, the first =1 returned result was in June of 2018, with the next spike was in November 2019 =17, followed by June 2020 with =42 and July 2020 with =99. The trends keep on being at high volume throughout most of 2020, with the next huge spike of =100 search was in March of 2021. The search has been 'cleaned up' by using Microsoft Excel to sort out
Cancel Culture searches 2015 - 2021: (Google Worldwide)
120
99 100
100
80 70
60 54
42
37
40 32
17 20 22 18
20 16
12
4 5
9 7 10 5 5
9
1 1 1 2 1 2 2
0
2019-07
2020-03
2020-10
2018-10
2019-01
2019-02
2019-03
2019-04
2019-05
2019-06
2019-08
2019-09
2019-10
2019-11
2019-12
2020-01
2020-02
2020-04
2020-05
2020-06
2020-07
2020-08
2020-09
2020-11
2020-12
2021-01
2021-02
2021-03
Figure 2. Cancel Culture searches on Google between 2015 - 2021
Based on the above timeline, I identified which are the articles using 'cancel culture' into
Google search and used the 'Customised date range tool' to set the search period for
the article based on the scores above. This was the method to extract the articles from
which the critical analysis discourse is conducted. From this action, I am able to trace
the first mentioned of the term 'cancel culture' and find the article online with the text
written that frames the concept. In her article, Clark said that journalists as elites, have
the power to bring closed discussion in meta networks into the mainstream thus online
articles are important to the discourse of cancel culture (2020:90). Following are the
articles identified:
1.The New York Times: Everyone is Cancel, written by Jonah Engel Bromwich,
published online on June 28, 2018 (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/style/is-it-
canceled.html)
212.The New York Times: Obama on Call-out culture, "That's Not Activism', written by
Emily S. Rueb & Derrick Byrson Taylor, published online on October 31, 2019
(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/obama-woke-cancel-culture.html)
3.The Time: Cancel Culture Is Not Real – At Least Not in the Way People Think, written
by Sarah Hagi, published online on November 21, 2019
(https://time.com/5735403/cancel-culture-is-not-real/)
4.NBC News: J.K. Rowling accused of transphobia after mocking 'people who
menstruates' headline, written by Doha Madani, published online on June 7, 2020
(https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/j-k-rowling-accused-transphobia-after-
mocking-people-who-menstruate-n1227071)
5.Harper's Magazine: A Letter on Justice and Open Debate, published on July 7,2020
(https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/)
6.Edition. CNN: It's time to cancel this talk of 'cancel culture', an analysis by AJ
Willingham, CNN, published on March 7, 2021
(https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/07/us/cancel-culture-accountability-reality-
trnd/index.html)
The next step is to analyse these articles individually utilizing Fairclough's 3-dimensions
CDA.
5.1. "Everyone is canceled"
Text
The use of the word 'everyone' can be interpreted that all of us, you and me reading this
are cancelled, and neither you nor I are immune to cancellation. The choice of using 'is'
suggests a present state of being that it is currently occurring. Without reading the
22article, it leaves those who read it to wonder what is everyone cancelled from or why
everyone is cancelled?
It only takes one thing – and sometimes, nothing – for fans to dump a celebrity.
Almost everyone worth knowing has been canceled by someone.
This article suggests that only people worth knowing are subjected to cancel culture and
that its working is unfair and often without a proper cause and due justice. It gave
examples of several notable celebrities such as Kanye West and Bill Gates. There is
vagueness in the articles' explanation of who are represented in the acts of cancelling
and only refer to them as 'fans' and make no mention of whether they are part of a
minority or marginalized groups.
There’s a hierarchy to being canceled: Celebrities who say things many people find
unacceptable, like Kanye, who suggested slavery was a choice..
"Kanye fretted extensively about being canceled, using some form of the word seven
separate times." (“Everyone Is Canceled - The New York Times”) “I’m canceled. I’m
canceled because I didn’t cancel Trump,” he said.
The use of word 'hierarchy' suggests people with status such as a celebrity is often
subjected to cancel culture, however in this text hierarchy could also imply to what kind
of behaviour that can lead to someone being cancelled. In this text, Kanye, who is an
African American rapper was cancelled because he commented that slavery was a
choice. This was an offensive remark and deemed insensitive to the history of slavery in
America. However, in the example, Kanye is claiming that he is being cancelled because
of his endorsement of President Trump. This is important to the development of cancel
culture, as current or historical events affects its discourse.
23Discursive practice
"To me, it's ultimately an expression of agency", said Meredith Clark, a professor at the
University of Virginia's department of media studies.
"It's a cultural boycott," said Lisa Nakamura, a professor at the University of Michigan
who studies the intersection of digital media and race, gender and sexuality.
The author is quoting others' definitions from notable academics in intersectionality and
media studies are a form of intertextuality borrowing to explain cancel culture. Agency
as used here is another way to understand representation by individuals. A cultural
boycott here can mean not giving support to the artist with offensive behaviours.
Aisha Rimi, who works at the London School of Economics and blogged about cancel
culture, said "When someone's canceled on black American Twitter, they tend to be
canceled on black U.K. Twitter."
This suggests that discourse of cancel culture takes place globally, as the workings of
social media posts are not constrained by national borders and the sentiment of certain
issues shared by the same group of people are often transnational such as the struggle
of people of colours.
Social practice
Ms. Nakamura said that cancel culture was born of a desire for control. People have
limited power over what is presented to them on social media platforms, which are
notorious for being poorly regulated.
"Socially irredeemable things are said on platforms all the time," Ms. Nakamura said.
Cancellation creates "a culture of accountability which is not centralized and is
haphazard, but needed to come into being."
24The text discusses the norm of social media platforms such as Twitter being poorly
regulated. Amnesty International survey in 2017 also reported that social media
companies are not doing enough to ensure for example women to feel safe using their
platforms. The other norm is that social media tends to be used by those in power, in
this article, the celebrities, to spread their popularity and sometimes their posts may be
relating to issues that are deemed offensive. Thus, the 'fans' are taking back power from
unregulated social media platforms, to demand accountability from the celebrity,
through cancellation. Power according to Foucault is a major source of social discipline
and conformity, and discipline creates a discursive practices and behaviour that defines
what is normal, acceptable, deviant, etc.
Which is to say, the canceled can be uncanceled – if they are willing to do the work. Or
hire a good publicist.
The author seems to suggest that representation and voice of the assumed 'fans' have
little to bring about social justice as celebrities can redeem themselves through an
apology or hiring a good publicist to turn their image around. This is the working of social
practice in celebrities' culture. The author appears to be sarcastic in his writing approach
to cancel culture given that the author is a style writer for the NYT and his writing is for
the representation and voice of the celebrities and not those who are calling for their
cancellation.
5.2. "Obama on Call-Out Culture": That's Not Activism"
Text
Headlining an article with an iconic name such as the former President Obama gave the
article a certain authority on the subject and getting straight to the point that call-out
culture is not activism. Call out is a by proxy of cancel culture. It demanded attention for
representation as Obama carries with him a prophetic status among black Americans
being the first president of colour in the US. If he says it is not activism, then it is not.
25The former president challenged young activists for being judgemental.
The use of the title 'president' is intimidating and authoritative regardless of the use of
the word "former" as it creates status over the other group "young activist".
This idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're politically 'woke' and all
that stuff." Mr. Obama said. "You should get over that quickly."
"The world is messy; there are ambiguities," he continued. "People who do really good
stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain
things with you."
The word 'purity' as a noun seems to suggest that youth have a higher moral value
(Chiou,2020:297) than the previous generation i.e., those who were previously in power.
The text also assumes that there is equality here between the youth and the 'older'
people and both of the groups represented may share a certain value and belief with
each other.
Discursive practice
The online article was written during a youth conference at Harvard University, and
opened with a 0:56 seconds video clip of Obama delivering the text in this article. He
appeared to be mocking the crowd and making jokes while delivering this message.
"Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn't do something right or used the wrong
verb," he said, "then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cause, 'Man, you
see how woke I was, I called you out."
Then he pretended to sit back and press the remote to turn on a television.
"That is not activism. That's not bringing about change." he said. "If all you're doing is
casting stones, you're not going to get that far. That's easy to do."
26This text is important as the youth conference is at an elite education institution such as
the Harvard University. According to Norris, education institution is where liberalism is
highly practiced, thus Obama's action was applauded by many conservatives (2020:17).
Obama was the president of the Democratic party in the USA and cancel culture has
been associated with liberals' tactics to oust Republican antiquated and conservative
ways on certain social policy. However, politics of the USA is not the focus on my thesis,
thus I will not elaborate on this.
His action received positive response from Tomi Lahren, conservative political
commentator, as these texts below:
"What's really nice to hear is Barack Obama standing up for our rights and our values of
the First Amendment," Ms. Lahren said. "Just remember we used to think Barack Obama
was bad."
Cancel culture has suddenly switched role from a social media activism to bring about
social justice to issues in the society such as racism, to a term being mocked by those in
power. Obama became the voice and representation of those in politics and for those
being called-out by social media activist, in particular by the youth in America.
Social practice
Social media activism is associated as a youth culture. Many of the online activism are
arguably the result of youth participation in increasing awareness around
representation and platforms such as Twitter have provided a way for the voices of
many underrepresented groups. Cancel culture can be seen as a form of sub-culture
deriving from the social practices of the internet such as the sharing, liking and
commenting on posts of celebrities or prominent persons by followers subscribed to
their Twitter as an example.
27You can also read
