This thesis explores the phenomenon of cancel culture within the media and communication science field, aiming to contribute to the understanding of cancel culture beyond the focal point of the cancelled figure. Drawing upon the theoretical framework of Governmentality with discourse and language and utilizing Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MCDA) as a methodological tool, the study delves into the complexities of cancel culture and its implications. The research involves a comprehensive qualitative analysis of Facebook news posts, with a further selection of content informed by a preliminary quantitative analysis of prevalent language themes found in their comments. By combining both quantitative and qualitative approaches, the study provides a nuanced understanding of the discourses surrounding cancel culture. Through an exploration of the praise of Yasin as Sweden’s best rapper, now a prominent figure within the context of cancel culture, the thesis analyses the qualitative technicalities of how Yasin is being cancelled and its potential resonance with his fans from marginalized communities. It sheds light on how Yasin's music functions a powerful medium of expression, capturing the complexity of life in exposed areas that resonates with the experiences of many young residents in the suburbs of exclusion. The thesis problematizes the potential consequences of cancelling public figures of marginalized communities and how this can be understood as a power relationship. Moreover, it stresses the potential segregation of social circles that can result from such actions. By this, it underscores the paradox of cancelling Yasin, who addresses the challenges faced by marginalized communities, and how cancelling his domestic narrative may further widen the divide between these communities and the rest of society.

This thesis aims to investigate Swedish PR practitioners’ assessments of and proposed response strategies to the cancellation case of Swedish social media influencer Margaux Dietz. Multiple organisations cancelled their collaborations with Dietz in November 2022 following a criticized video scandal. Furthermore, the thesis aims to examine Swedish PR practitioners’ reasoning of risk in their work with influencer marketing, considering a present “cancel culture”. Two research questions are posed: RQ1: How do Swedish PR practitioners reflect on the cancellation of Swedish social media influencer Margaux Dietz in November 2022, and how would they have handled the situation? RQ2: In what ways do Swedish PR practitioners reflect on the risks of working with influencer marketing in relation to cancel culture? With a sample of nine participants, semi structured interviews were conducted with PR practitioners active in Stockholm, Sweden. The interviews were first analysed through a qualitative content analysis, and thereafter a theoretical framework, consisting of the notion cancel culture as defined by Clark (2020) and Ng (2020), as well as Benoit’s (2015) Image Repair Theory, was applied. Findings suggested that there were five themes present in the interviewees’ responses, (1) Risks of Influencer Marketing, (2) Cancel Culture as Positive, (3) Cancel Culture as Negative, (4) Managing Being Cancelled and (5) Uncertainty. The main conclusions indicated that there was a general uncertainty in practitioners concerning their opinions of the Dietz case. Interviewees both expressed an understanding for and questioned the organisations’ actions in the case, however most would consider cancelling collaborations during similar circumstances themselves due to a need to protect their brands. There was a common reasoning that cancel culture could be limiting and even harmful, and interviewees perceived risks in their work with influencer marketing relating to a loss of control, the human factor and cancel culture.

Cancel culture can briefly be described as the active attempt to silence a person that has expressed an opinion that offended someone whether it was intentional or not. This thesis will present how cancel culture is understood, perceived and experienced by journalists, communication professionals, and media experts, as well as how, according to them, it impacts freedom of expression and journalism. The findings are analyzed from a theoretical framework of the public sphere and participatory democracy. The conclusion shows that cancel culture can both serve as a means to address social injustices while also threatening freedom of expression and, by that, journalism. Cancelling journalists, because they have reported on controversial issues that others have found offensive, can result in more self-censorship among journalists which can have negative consequences for democracy itself. Further research is encouraged to investigate the impacts of cancel culture on the field of journalism and ultimately its impacts on freedom of expression and democracy.

Research Problem: The pressure for brands to stand out and at the same contribute to a better world is a constant battle in a competing digital media landscape. Advertising campaigns are ways for brands to separate themselves from their competition. In a recent campaign launched by Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) their advertising campaign What is truly Scandinavian? backfired and caused an active media audience to engage. SAS feared that their campaign got hijacked which resulted in a temporary withdrawal of their film. In light of the rise of online counterpublics and the upswing of so-called cancel culture this essay draws upon these concepts to analyse the reactions to SAS advertising campaign on the Swedish discussion forum Flashback. Aim: The study intends to examine how the reactions to SAS advertising campaign, What is truly Scandinavian?, can be understood as part of a counterpublic and a cancel culture on Flashback. Questions: (1) Which most prominent themes and reading positions can be distinguished among the reactions to SAS's advertising campaign in the selected Flashback thread? (2) How can the studied part of the Flashback thread be understood as a counterpublic? (3) How can the studied part of the Flashback thread be understood as part of a cancel culture? Theories: Active audience theory, counterpublics, cancel culture The empirical material: A specific Flashback thread with a selection of the first 96 posts. Methods: A combination of netnography, qualitative content analysis and reception analysis. Results: Primary themes identified in the thread are Culture and identity, Boycott and other consequences and Negative reactions and emotions. The majority of the Flashback posts are considered to be cynical readings of SAS advertising campaign. Sympathetic and skeptical readings were not as prominent. The reactions in the Flashback thread can be considered a counterpublic where a cancel culture takes place. Significance: Further understanding of an audience reaction and response to a specific advertising campaign in relation to counterpublics and cancel culture. Results on a current case.

No description available.

The increase in digitalisation of society and the growth of the internet has increased the development and activity of the media. People who are active in media create a personal brand with a goal to portray positive connections to themselves in order to attract opportunities. If the person behaves or says something controversial they face a risk of getting canceled. Cancel culture is a term that is researched in this paper and indicates that a person has made a mistake. This leads to the person being hung out in public, meaning a negative image for the personal brand. By getting canceled the person gets fired from their job or removed from a specific environment. The purpose of this study is to analyze how two Swedish celebrities use personal branding as a strategy to reestablish themselves in the media using crisis- and strategic communication within today's cancel culture. Using a qualitative research method with a focus on strategic and crisis communication this study uses a hermeneutic method based on interpretation to analyze the specific strategies that Paolo Roberto and Alexander Bard uses when trying to reestablish themselves.  The study analyzes Alexander Bard and Paolo Robertos communication on social media platforms and oral interviews on the Swedish channel TV4 after being fired for their behavior. The study examines the use of strategies by Roberto and Bard in their communication. The empirical data is based on the interviews with TV4 and posts on social media regarding the incident that got Bard and Roberto canceled. It was found that Roberto and Bard used two different types of communication strategies when trying to reestablish themselves after being canceled and this study examines if their strategies were successful or not. The study answers the question on how personal branding can be used as a method to reestablish a brand after being canceled.

No description available.

This study examines the phenomena of cancel culture, and the cancellation of author J.K Rowling during June 2020. Cancel culture is a world spread phenomenon which is widely discussed and has been heavily criticized for limiting the freedom of speech as well as embraced for creating a way for marginalized groups to influence the public debate. The aim is to analyze the cancellation process of Rowling through articles and discourse, and answering the question; How is cancel culture expressed in articles regarding the case of J.K Rowling?  The study’s theoretical framework is based on Michel Foucault’s theories on discourse, power and knowledge and is closely connected with the methodological approach, a Foucauldian discourse analysis. The analyzed units consist of a selection of nine articles regarding the specific case.  The analysis resulted in three main themes; Actors and power relations, Presentation of norms, and Presentations of J.K Rowling, through which the cancellation process is analyzed. The conclusions can be summarized as follows: cancel culture takes its form in the articles by presenting Rowling mainly negatively, expressing why her standpoints are problematic, as well as challenging existing power structures. At the same time the results reveal that a cancellation is complex and can take form in different ways.  Our contribution to the research field is to provide further understanding for the specific case. Hopefully our results, in combination with other studies, can contribute to deeper understanding of the phenomena of cancel culture.

The following is a case study in contemporary cancel culture through three cases of it in the nineteenth century. Lord Byron, Lady Caroline Lamb, and Harriet Beecher Stowe serve as three prominent cases of cancel culture in their time period that are all closely linked to one another. Cancel culture changes the way that we study these figures and their writing in the modern day. This shows that although we believe that cancel culture is a new phenomenon with the rise of social media that is not the case. Cancel culture has been happening through time as a way for the public to enact social justice without getting the court involved. Cancel culture is a lesson in the public court of opinion. / Master of Arts / The following is a case study in contemporary cancel culture through three cases of it in the nineteenth century. Writers, Lord Byron, Lady Caroline Lamb, and Harriet Beecher Stowe serve as three prominent cases of cancel culture in their time period that are all closely linked to one another. Cancel culture changes the way that we study these figures and their writing in the modern day. It highlights how cancel culture is not as black and white as people initially believe while also showing an unbiased explanation of what transpires when a person is canceled. This shows that although we believe that cancel culture is a new phenomenon with the rise of social media that is not the case. Cancel culture has been happening through time as a way for the public to enact social justice without getting the court involved. Cancel culture is a lesson in the public court of opinion.

Begreppet cancelkultur har kommit att bli ett allt mer utbrett fenomen, främst inom sociala medier. Studiens syfte är att undersöka vad cancelfenomenet innebär och om den har någon påverkan på samhällsdebatten, i form av att den eventuellt hämmar individens sätt att uttrycka sig, i rädsla för att gå utanför de normativa ramarna. Studiens forskningsfrågor lyder; Hur kan cancelkultur-begreppet beskrivas? Hur påverkas enskilda individers sätt att uttrycka sig av den cancelkultur som råder på sociala medier? Detta är en kvalitativ studie där ett abduktivt angreppssätt använts. Semistrukturerade intervjuer har utförts där deltagarna valdes ut via ett bekvämlighetsurval. Den insamlade empirin analyserades sedan via tematisk analys. Studiens teoretiska ramverk utgörs av Giddens struktureringsteori och Goffmans stigma. Giddens genom sin teori hjälper till att bättre förstå cancelkultur som en social process, medan Goffmans analys om stigmat bidrar till att förstå och analysera hur individer kan uppleva cancelkultur på individnivå. Studiens resultat visade på att det utbredda cancelfenomenet kan ha varierande effekter då det tydligt tar ställning till vad som inte anses vara en godtagbar handling, samtidigt som det kan påverka i vilken mån individer väljer att uttrycka sig och på så vis ses som hämmande. Det framgick dock att det inte går att påvisa att cancelkulturen skulle leda till att individer inte vågar stå upp för sin åsikt och kring vad som de anser är rätt och fel i en situation. / The concept of cancel culture has become an increasingly widespread phenomenon, mainly within social media. The purpose of the study is to investigate what the cancellation phenomenon means and whether it has any impact on the social debate, in the form of possibly inhibiting the individual's way of expressing themselves, in fear of going outside the normative framework. The study's research questions are; How can the concept of cancel culture be described? How is the way individuals express themselves affected by the cancel culture that prevails on social media? This is a qualitative study where an abductive approach was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted where participants were selected via convenience sampling. The collected empirical evidence was then analyzed via thematic analysis. The study's theoretical framework consists of Gidden's structuring theory and Goffman's stigma. Through his theory, Giddens helps to better understand cancel culture as a social process, while Goffman's analysis of stigma helps to understand and analyze how individuals can experience cancel culture on an individual level. The result of the study showed that the widespread cancellation phenomenon can have varying effects as it clearly takes a stand on what is not considered an acceptable act, while at the same time it can affect the extent to which individuals choose to express themselves and thus be seen as inhibiting. However, it became clear that it cannot be demonstrated that the cancel culture would lead to individuals not daring to stand up for their opinion and what they consider to be right and wrong in a situation. / <p>2023-06-01</p>