This case study examines a widely criticized part of an advertising campaign published by the Swedish Public Employment Service. The criticized picture is a montage that features one of Sweden’s largest influencers, Therese Lindgren’s, head edited onto the body of the disabled influencer Natalie Eriksson. The study also examines a reaction to the campaign in the form of a Youtube video made by activist Lovette Jallow. The purpose of this study is to create a deeper understanding of on what grounds the campaign could be seen as problematic. The purpose is also to contribute to the development of the idea about call-out culture. The study is based on the two following questions: “On what grounds can the Swedish Public Employment Service's campaign image with Therese Lindgren and Natalie Eriksson be considered problematic?” and “What arguments are made in Lovette Jallow's Youtube video Therese Lindgren II Ableism and Whitewashing and how can those be linked to call-out culture?”. The methods used are a semiotic analysis of the campaign image and a rhetorical analysis of the video. The study is based on theories concerning representation, intersectionality, call-out culture and crip theory. The study shows that the campaign image could be seen as problematic because normality is used to construct abnormality, the image helps maintain false beliefs about people with disabilities, it hides Eriksson’s ethnicity and also makes her invisible in her own battle. The study also shows that Jallow’s video could qualify as an example of call-out culture because it contains segments that are typical for a call-out. The video is further problematized and discussed based on ideas about call-out culture.

In just a few years, cancel culture has become the topic on everyone's lips. It's an exciting, but also to a certain extent a treacherous phenomenon that has etched into our society, both online and offline. It moves quickly and is constantly changing, but where does it come from, and what drives it?  In this study, I map out how cancel and call-out culture are constructed by conducting a research overview. The theoretical framework consists of theories about the scapegoat mechanism, the public sphere, and digital activism. The material consists of 33 peer-reviewed articles.  The results show that research has been conducted across several research areas, with the majority of the articles falling under the field of media and communication studies. There are divided opinions about the impact of cancel culture on the public debate. Some scholars define cancel and call-out culture on one hand as political tools that promote public debate and that can help access fundamental problems such as racism and sexism. On the other hand, the phenomena are defined as threats to democracy as the resurrection that arises when these phenomena are exercised can draw attention away from more important and more acute societal issues. Furthermore, the results show that cancel culture depends on a cross-platform engagement. Since the majority of the articles examine Twitter, this indicates that more studies need to be conducted to fully understand how cancel culture works.

TikTok differs from how the media audience is used to seeing other social media platforms. When opening the app, the user does not see the friends you have decided to follow. Instead, you are faced with an algorithmically decided and never-ending feed of content personified individually for the specific user. In recent years, TikTok has become a prominent and rapidly growing platform, especially among younger media users. The emergence of TikTok usage among the youth implies an increased need for examining cultural phenomena that are performed on this platform. This study will be exploring the emergence of the online phenomenon known as mediated public shaming on TikTok by critically reviewing how young Swedish TikTok users are engaging in and experiencing the mediated public shaming that is occurring on TikTok as well as its effects by taking a theoretical departure from media literacy theories. The study is a qualitative reception study where the empirical material is conducted by one-to-one interviews with nine mundane Swedish TikTok users between the ages of 16–27. It was discovered that young TikTok users have a complex relationship with the mediated public shaming they face on TikTok and engage in the concept in a rather objective and reflective manner. They do, however, express concern that the design of the media, in conjunction with mediated public shaming, may allow for subconscious effects of their opinions. Looking forward, there is an indicated compelling need for continued research within the field, proposedly further research of online cultures’ roles in the determination of platform design and construction of algorithms.