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.

Hur ser svenska nyhetstexters rapportering om fallet Yasin och P3-Guld ut? Studien undersöker vilka diskurser som materialiseras i Aftonbladet, Expressen och Dagens Nyhetersrapportering från händelsen via Norman Faircloughs kritiska diskursanalys. Vidare undersöks och analyseras fallet Yasin och P3-Guld som en del av cancel-kultur med utgångspunkt i Michel Foucaults teori om brott och straff. Studien kom fram till att nyhetsrapporteringen innehöll fyra centrala teman: kriminalitet, bojkott, gangsterapp och konstnärlig frihet. Därefter analyserades materialet interdiskursivt och intertextuellt där resultatet visar på att nyhetstexterna och dess diskurser bygger på: den juridiska diskursen, tysta/lyssna diskursenoch en politisk diskurs. Nyhetstexterna kunde även analyseras via Michel Foucaults teori om övervakning och straff och studien fann tendenser i hur rapporteringen kan kopplas till cancel-kultur

Cancelkultur kan beskrivas som kulturell ostracism och har kommit att bli ett omdebatterat Ämne i Sverige och övriga västvärlden, detta till följd av människors skilda åsikter om dess innebörd och betydelse. Syftet med denna studie är att belysa hur fenomenet cancelkultur skildras och diskuteras i svenska opinionsartiklar. Studien tar sin ansats i Norman Faircloughs kritiska diskursanalys för att synliggöra på vilket sätt opinionsjournalister konstruerar bilden av cancelkultur och vilka diskurser som är närvarande. Med hjälp av Faircloughs tredimensionella modell har tre artiklar djupare analyserats för att undersöka om dessa reproducerar eller utmanar den rådande diskursordningen. Resultatet visar att det pågår en diskursiv kamp om hur begreppet cancelkultur framställs och får sin betydelse. Utöver den pågående kampen visar resultatet att journalisterna åberopar, i en svensk kontext, förgivettagen kunskap för att visa på textens legitimitet.

As companies are expected to take major responsibility towards their stakeholders, there are also some risks involved. Cancel culture is a new societal phenomenon that is taking an increasing part in our everyday lives. The aim of the study is to understand whether and how Swedish companies' crisis communication, and above all preventive crisis management, is affected by a business partner's crisis, in the era of cancel culture. Based on the aim, the following questions have been formulated:  "How did the company Paolo's retailers act in its crisis communication to protect and improve its reputation in connection with the crisis?"  "How did Paolo's retailers communicate the decision to distance themselves from the company externally on social media?"  To support the results of the study, Situational crisis communication theory has been applied, this is further supplemented with the crisis communication aspect preventive crisis management, as well as the phenomenon of cancel culture. The methods used are data collection of text and image, qualitative interview method, semiotic image analysis and qualitative content analysis. These have been used to collect and analyze relevant material to further answer the research questions. The results of the study clearly show that a crisis in the era of cancel culture is often difficult to stop - no matter how prepared you are. Of course, you can reduce the consequences by setting up a clear crisis plan, but depending on how transparent and accommodating you are, the consequences can be reduced. It is often said that it is not a crisis that defines the company, but how to handle it, which fits in well with this situation.  As cancel culture is still a new and unexplored field, we hope with this study to contribute to new research. Future research hopes to serve as a guide for how companies can handle cancel culture without the consequences being devastating.

Abstract  Background: Circumstances deemed immoral conduct within the influencer marketing industry provoke eloquent sentiments and originated the phenomenon referred to as cancel culture. In spite of the industry's expansion and influencer marketing growth in revenue, there is presently a scarcity of academic research on influencer strategies that manage the cancel culture within social media. Additionally, how crisis management corresponds to the cancel culture is equally inadequately to address.    Problem: The dearth of research elucidated an identified knowledge gap pertaining to the strategies employed by influencers when faced with rejection by followers and society. Customers are more frequently holding influencers accountable for their actions, ultimately damaging brands’ reputations and wrecking careers.     Purpose: The research aims to provide knowledge on the unexplored horizon of how influencers modify strategies on social media when committing personal transgression that harms the public image. Analyzing consumers' causes for canceling emerge influencers' comprehension of implementing suitable prevention strategies and recovery maneuvers.    Method: The research is based on a qualitative inquiry and incorporates a deductive methodology, along with a multiple case study leveraging an interpretivism paradigm. In order to gather primary data, six semi-structured interviews were performed among influencers and consumers located in Sweden.    Conclusion: The outcome demonstrates the origin of consumers’ initiative that erodes the phenomena cancel culture based on three components; the domino effect, follower engagement, and source criticism. The data illustrated altering strategies are covered by the three crisis management fundamentals; pre-crisis, response, and post-crisis. Ultimately, the three strategies adopted to tackle the cancel culture within influencer marketing were; change in communication, lessen privacy, and third-party appliance.

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.

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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.