Cancel culture is a relatively new phenomenon in Sweden that is multifaceted. There is a clear problem that has been highlighted earlier, which is power relations on social media. It shows that different parties possess power in different kinds and when making statements that contradict social norms leads to what is known as cancel culture. The phenomenon has led to a polarizing climate on social media. The purpose of this study is to answer how cancel culture is perceived by younger adult media users in the age group between 18-30 years and investigate how they relate to this phenomenon. The question is: How do younger adult media users perceive and relate to cancel culture on social media? The theories used in the study were spiral of silence and theory of planned behaviour. These theories helped to understand how the interviewees both perceive and relate to cancel culture. The theories helped provide an understanding of how and why media users behave the way they do towards cancel culture. The question will with the help of a qualitative approach as a method on semi-structured interviews answer how 9 Swedish media users perceive and relate to cancel culture. The result shows that the respondents perceived cancel culture as famous people utters or behave in a way that is not accepted by society. This leads to social ostracism on social media. The power relationship is perceived as the public figures having power, but private individuals have a collective power to influence. The respondents showed an overall negative view with positive glimpses of cancel culture. Which in turn shows that a passive approach from these younger adult media users. The positive sides of cancel culture turned out to be that in emotional and norm-breaking behaviour, the victim is confronted because of their actions and in various ways becomes punished media users, most commonly an ostracism on social media.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-121348 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Gottschalk, Marcus, Johansson, Samuel |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för medier och journalistik (MJ) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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