#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.

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 1.1. 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

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these 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
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addressing 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.

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 2.2. 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
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to 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
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a 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

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idea 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

8
antecedent 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
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having 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

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and 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

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discusses 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
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workings 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?

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Q2. 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).

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Stuart 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).

15
 3.2. 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.

16
Figure 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
17
what 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)

18
The 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
19
beneficial 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 <1 and =0 and
focused on the abovementioned return result for clearer display in the figure below. The
screenshot from Google Trends is in Appendix 1.

20
 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)

21
2.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

22
article, 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.

23
Discursive 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."

24
The 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.

25
 The 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."

26
This 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.

27
 5.3. "Cancel Culture Is Not Real – At Least Not in the Way People Think"

Text

The headline presents an enigma to what cancel culture is by first stating it is not real,
but later justifying that it is indeed real in some form. It also used the word "people" to
generalize representation and voice, that is all of us are involved in thinking that cancel
culture is not what we assume it to be.

Cancel culture became so central to the discourse in 2019 that even President Obama
weighed in. The idea is that if you do something that others deem problematic, you
automatically lose all your currency. Your voice is silenced. You're done. "Those who
condemn cancel culture usually imply that it's unfair and indiscriminate."

The author discusses how cancel culture became an important discourse to voice and
representation and provided a timeline of 2019. This is important as from the trend
analysis, we see the topic steadily grow in internet searches. The text also uses the term
'others' and 'those' as a pronoun to refer to a group of people.

Discursive practice

The problem with this perspective is cancel culture isn't real, at least not in the way
people believe it is. Instead, it's turned into a catch-all for when people in power face
consequences for their actions or receive any type of criticism, something that they're
not used to.

The text expresses concern how cancel culture has been misappropriated by those in
power as a way to escape accountability.

I'm a black, Muslim woman, and because of social media, marginalized people like
myself can express ourselves in a way that was not possible before. That means racist,
sexist, and bigoted behavior or remarks don't fly like they used to. This applies to not

28
 only wealthy people or industry leader but anyone whose privilege has historically
shielded them from public scrutiny. Because they can't handle this cultural shift, they
rely on phrases like "cancel culture" to delegitimize the criticism.

The paragraph above connects to the text here with the author declaring how her
intersectionality (Crenshaw,1989) has finally been included in the discussion of
mainstream media. This has allowed her to call-out to those in power, i.e., those who
due to their privileges have long shielded them from being accountable for their actions.
However, this power shift is not given up easily and those in power are turning it around
for their own benefit. This is the first article that uses the word privilege and power in
relation to cancel culture.

Social practice

There aren't many people who can understand what Swift went through. To have so
many people turn on you is surely upsetting. But how exactly was she canceled? Though
many people believed that this white woman has disingenuously portrayed herself as a
victim of a black bully and made clear that they didn't find that acceptable, Swift has
remained one of the highest paid celebrities in the world.

The author's choice to address Swift, as 'this white woman' suggests the social norms
within people of colour to apply the concept of 'them' and 'us' (Hall,2013). The use of
'black' and 'bully' shows a norm that being a black person carries a presumed image of
a 'brute' and the opposite whites are often perceived as fragile or innocent. The social
practice of cancelling whereby rarely that anyone who is cancelled is actually cancelled.

I write frequently about racism and Islamophobia and have received more death
threats, call for my firing and racist insults than I can keep track of. But when people
who believe cancel culture is a problem speak out about its supposed silencing effect, I
know they're not talking about those attacks. When they throw around terms like
"cancel culture" to silence me instead of reckoning with the reasons I might find actions

29
 or jokes dehumanizing, I'm led to one conclusion: they'd prefer I was powerless against
my own oppression.

The author appears distraught in this text expressing how cancel culture is being
misappropriated by those in power to silence her from writing about her oppression.
Foucault argues there are both discourses that constrain the production of knowledge,
and some discourses maintain their authority, how some 'voices' get heard whilst others
are silenced, who benefits and how - that is the questions addressing issues of power,
empowerment and disempowerment.

5.4. "J.K. Rowling accused of transphobia after mocking 'people who menstruate'
headline."

Text

Choosing to use the name of a well-known person as the headline always draws
attention. J.K. Rowling has been a household name since the release of the Harry Potter
first book in 1997. The title uses aggressive verbs such as "accused" and "mocking" in
the same sentence with a noun "transphobia", which tends to raise emotional and worry
in readers. Using the phrase "people who menstruate" creates a curiosity of whose
representation and voice are included, as there is a tendency to associate menstruation
with women or females.

30
The author discusses how Rowling's choice to find alternative word to define "people
who menstruate" was the reason for the outlash on the internet, by sharing her tweet
in the article. The noun "people" is an inclusive word i.e., all human beings, and her
conservative idea of only a woman menstruates by suggesting a new exclusive word
such as "wumben", "wimpund" which is a non-existing term, was deemed inappropriate
by non-gender conforming groups.

31
A tweet response by another celebrity, was included in the article in response to
Rowling's tweet. The tweet clearly points out that Rowling represented a group with
power and influence over those in a weaker position, in this text, the "trans men".

Discursive practice

This article provided a tweet by Rowling on June 6, 2020, and the tweet may be one of
the most important turning points for cancel culture and how it affects issues of
representation and voice.

To analyse the discursive relation of the tweets to the discourse of cancel culture we
need to step back to understand the movement of gender identity for the Lesbians,
Gays, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community. The LGBT community have fought
to receive the same equal rights as heterosexual men and women for example for their
right to marry. They have also fought for the protection and recognition in society and
for their own representation and voice in the media. Prior to 2019 for example, it was
uncommon to see a gay or lesbian couple kissing or having sex on television. Those who
identify as transgender and non-binary regularly face job and healthcare discrimination
(Granberg et. al.2020). Thus, when Rowling chooses not to recognize their struggle by
not extending the term "people who menstruate" to include them, this devalues their

32
experience. Non-binary and transgender are commonly defined as those who does not
identify with the gender that was assigned to them at birth despite having what medical
term would describe as a biological sex organ. I stress that my thesis is not on gender
identity, but on cancel culture discourse, thus I shall not elaborate on the discussion.

"I respect every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable
to them," Rowling replied. "I'd march with you if you were discriminated against on the
basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not
believe it's hateful to say so."

Rowling’s point of view that women have also struggled for their representation and
voice on issues such as workplace harassment, inequality and menstrual complications.
This is equally important to the discourse of cancel culture as history has documented
the struggle of women such as the suffragette and many others.

The other important discursive in this text was a tweet by another influencer as below:

The poster is angered by the distraction that Rowling's tweet was causing on Twitter
while there is another important activism taking place under the #BlackLivesMatter
(BLM), which was the death of George Floyd, an African American during a police arrest.
The person who posted the tweet @Kim Petras did not perceive a discussion on gender
identity by the LGBT community or by Rowling as anything that deserves the attention
of Twitter users during this event.

33
Social practice

Affordances tells us that social media platforms such as Twitter play a significant role in
the discourse of how gender binaries were formulated in the article. Zheng & Yu (2016)
argued affordance emerged for social practice involving technology and are related to
experience, skills and cultural understandings of the users. Affordances also argued that
people pick up information relevant to their need from their environment. In the context
of gender binaries, those with understanding of gender identity are vocal on Twitter to
communicate that trans men menstruate. To those with the lack of knowledge on
gender identity, the word 'men' and 'menstruate' will likely make any sense. As with
Twitter, posts are short and often do not provide a longer explanation for the relations
of these words and its meaning. In relation to the discourse of cancel culture, online
venues such as Twitter has made holding anyone accountable no longer a private event,
but a public performance and turn to be a venue to display the power of who have the
better knowledge of anti-oppressive languages for example of gender identities or of
racism.

5.5. "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate"

Text

The use of the word justice here is synonymously attached to open debate. Justice is an
appealing word to everyone and carries many connotations from emotional feeling due
to injustice experienced, anger, to happiness and triumphant for example.

Open debate is often associated with the freedom to speak and to discuss one's opinion
without worry, making the article more appealing to arguably, people of higher
intellectual status and moral discipline.

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and
social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls

34
 for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education,
journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a
new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms
of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we
applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second.

Cultural institutions can be understood as an organization that works for the

preservation and promotion of culture. As a general reader, knowledge of what
constitutes a cultural institution can be sporadic, thus this text can be excluding to some
readers. The letter came out during the height of #BlackLivesMatter protests which
started in the USA demanding justice and better treatment of African Americans,
alongside the gender identity (LGBT) and anti-patriarchy (#MeToo) movement that
spread in education campuses and workplaces.

Another important event that was affecting the entire world population was the Covid-
19 pandemic that saw a worldwide lockdown, and the majority of people were in
lockdowns in their houses with presumably more time to spend on their social media. It
may be the reason that online conversation around cancel culture increased in 2020 and
continue to rise.

The writer of this letter is representing the elites, by adopting the term 'we', when
writing on the ability for freedom to the expression of ideas without conforming to one
another. The writer is concern with 'a new set of moral attitudes and political
commitment', which is what cancel culture act demands – a change to the old,
antiquated norms. For example, of racial profiling and differential treatment by the
police towards blacks in BLM, or the patriarchy and the sexual harassment of women by
MeToo and the gender conforming binaries that decline recognition of transgenders in
the LGBT movement.

35
Discursive practice

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily
becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical light,
censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing
views, a vouge for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex
policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even
caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for
swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgression of speech and
thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage
control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered
reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for
alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors
are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for
circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted
for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.

Discursive practices are the way in which discourse brings these hegemonic norms into
life and are usually determined within the power and knowledge dichotomy
(Foucault,1975). Cultural institutions have previously been subjected to the justification
of political correctness in for example academic works. Political correctness is now
associated as an earlier form of cancel culture.

Social practice

The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society,

invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic
participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion,
not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice
and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that
leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes.

36
The letter was published in an exclusive publication; Harper's Magazine, whose
readership demographic is not targeted to the masses as it is a subscription-based
magazine. The social practice within the creative and liberals hive minds have always
been to demand immunity to their artwork and that practice is clear as the letter
majority signatories are scholars and writers. There is a request to separate the artist
from the arts when it comes to demanding immunity from what is perceived as creative
freedoms (Holman,2020:37).

5.6. "It's time to cancel this talk of 'cancel culture'".

Text

Time as a noun gives a number of meaning, however here it is suggesting 'time' to be of

a call to act immediately on something, in this instance, on the cancel culture
phenomenon. To whom this action is addressed to, is not clear from the headline of the
article.

Cancel culture, as it's understood today, isn't real. Not only do people and things
allegedly "canceled" by this imaginary movement often prevail in the end, but the whole
concept is a smoke screen to distract from actual systemic forces of suppression.

The text is stressing that cancel culture movement in its own way have lost its power as
those who is 'cancelled' tend to survive the situation, and that the cancel culture has
become something that came out from social media and internet culture masquerading
as activism for those underrepresented and voiceless due to systematic oppression.

Discursive practice

Cancel culture is nothing new.

Its philosophy -- that anyone can be excoriated for speaking their mind, that people are
too sensitive, that the slightest offense can be fatal – is just a repackaged extension of
37
 the decades-long culture wars and the "political correctness" dialogue popular in the
1990s.

The discursive practices of cancel culture that it is nothing more than a newer term to
what was historically known as 'political correctness'. Political correctness was defined
as the avoidance of the use of language or behaviours that could offend a particular
group of people. The other discourse is that of culture wars, which is a cultural conflict
between social groups and the struggle for representation and voice and for the
dominance of their beliefs and values, that has always taken place in societies.

Woman afraid to speak up for fear of being blacklisted, LGBTQ people hiding their
identities to protect their career or lives, people shunned for their culture or their views:

These are the real problems that exist. It's not cancel culture.

To know the difference, look at the people who actually suffers when these cultural wars
play out.

In 2016, Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem at an NFL game. After that
season, he hasn't played football since.

The text provided a sombre reminder to whom cancel culture should benefit as
suggested in earlier articles how cancel culture and its purpose has taken on a different
discourse.

Social practice

There is accountability. There are legal repercussions. There are tides of public opinion
and the pull of the free market. There are also longstanding institutional structures that
serve to suppress and threaten those who act against the interest of those with power.

None of this is cancel culture.

38
 And by pretending otherwise, we're distracting ourselves from seeing the patterns of
who really benefits from the rhetoric, and who really loses.

The text is discussing that there are social practices within enterprises, countries and
international agencies that apply legal mechanisms in the event when someone was
'breaking the law', and the text suggests that at times these legal mechanisms only serve
those who actually make them. A company may opt to fire an employee after a
complaint based on its company's policy. Some countries may have internal laws that
will imprison its citizens who spoke up against their government. Though at times this
may seem like injustice, this at the text suggested, is not cancel culture. These are the
workings of social practices of such agencies, and those without actual power will always
lose if cancel culture is just used as a "catch-phrase" to claim and demand inclusion the
article claims.

5.7. Summary of CDA

This chapter will account for the overall summary of the CDA and the overall conclusions
that can be discerned from them with regard to the discourse of cancel culture and its
effect on representation and voice.

In 2017, cancel culture was in these early days seen as an effective online activism as
documented in #MeToo and the emphasize on representation and voice of women
against sexual harassment. This movement has led to the trial of high-profile men such
as Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. In the LGBT #Pride movement, sees the inclusion of
representation and voice of trans gender and homosexuals among others in several
areas of social practices. Take for instance, the legalization of same sex marriages.
Though the term was coined later on, the thesis recognizes this activism as being the
predecessor of cancel culture, and the associated then term was 'boycott' (e.g.,
Nakamura cited in Bromwich (2018)). The thesis observed an important event, the
appointment of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States have both
indirect and direct effect to the discourse of cancel culture in 2017. It is worthy to note
39
of Trump's famous 'grab-them-by-the-pussy' and his other sexist remarks that has help
sparked the Women's March in Washington in January of 2017.

Cancel culture term came to surface in 2018. While in the literature review it was said
to have been around for much longer, it did not become a trend until 2018. Cancel
culture was associated with the act of unfair withdrawal of support by fans towards
celebrities over offensive remarks or behaviours (Bromwich,2018). Cancel culture saw
the rising power by fans to control and punish celebrities, as online platforms such as
Twitter was deemed incapable to regulate offensive behaviour by these celebrities. The
discourse of cancel culture was that it was used by fans, a representation of people who
previously supported a celebrity, to voice their disapproval of inappropriate act by
unfollowing them on social media for example.

In 2019 cancel culture metamorphosed from being a punishing tool by fans towards
celebrities, to a powerful term that threatens those in the power to form policies such
as politicians. The other significant discourse here is that people was being cancelled for
something they have done in the past. Cancel culture was deemed threatening to one's
position, that it was acknowledged by prominent people such as former President
Obama. He discredited the act as activism and this remark contributed to the 'devaluing'
of the use of cancel culture to bring about justice. In 2019 cancel culture became a tool
by liberals to call out on conservatives in education institutions (Norris,2020) and
politicians were using it to win voters by using this phenomenon to highlight their
opponents past offensive behaviours. In another discourse of the same period, cancel
culture was argued for as a useful tool to allow for minority and marginalized people to
speak of their experience of oppression. When powerful people such as former
President Obama discredited it, this act was seen as the elites exercising their
hegemonic power to escape accountability (Hagi,2020).

2020 saw cancel culture recognize as a serious threat to everyone. Applying historic
discourse analysis theory (Wodak,2009) that discourse is connected with other
communicative events which are happening at the same time, or which have happened
40
before. Thus, the thesis noted the following important global event, the Covid-19
pandemic. The worldwide lockdown of the population means many were in their homes
during this period. During Covid-19 cancel culture was being used as reason to withdraw
support to a multitude of reasons to what Twitter users deems offensive. While not
mentioned in any of the article, Ellen DeGeneres, one of the most well-known LGBT
spokespersons lost support from both her viewers of her day-time TV show and
followers on her social media accounts due to a post she made comparing being stuck
in quarantine at her home was like being in prison6. Fans were appalled by the remark
as she was quarantined in her luxury mansion and comparing it to a prison was simply
insensitive. Despite Ellen's long representation and voice of the LGBT community, she
was not spared from cancel culture.

In the same year, cancel culture saw the uprise of the transgender community against
J.K. Rowling, for not recognizing their identity when she solicited a new term to address
'people who menstruate' (Madani,2020). In the introduction chapter of this thesis, I gave
an example of her earlier running with the transgender community when she posted a
Tweet of her support to a TERF spoke person in December 2019. However, that post did
not show up in Google Trends as having any significant discussion worldwide. I provide
two explanations, the first it was happening in the UK and while I did argue that social
media posts are not constrained by national borders, the act was considered local and
the person in question Maya Forrester was cancelled when she was fired from her job.
However, in June 2020 Rowling's anti-transgender post made headline because she took
advantage of the pandemic by re-tweeting a post sharing a Covid-19 message on
creating menstruation equality to developing countries and communicated her
disagreement on gender identity. My second argument is based on Wodak's HDA that
relates discourse to a communicative event, past or present.

I would also use the same argument that the pandemic contributed to the discourse of
cancel culture in 2020 when so many people are in their homes having more time to
understand what is being presented to them online by what Clark describes as elites

41
(2020:90). Social media became a refuge to many during the lockdown. With plenty of
time spare, people were paying attention to what is being presented to them online.
However, nothing more significant than the reignite movement of #BlackLivesMatter
that happened right after George Floyd7 death in May 2020. Floyd's death, recorded by
several onlookers during a police arrest in Minneapolis USA, saw a global mobilisation
for the improve representation and voice of African Americans. This movement also led
to anti-slavery protest by people of colour and other underrepresented groups. The
mobilisation led to the demand by oppressed groups for the removal of e.g., statutes or
monuments built in memorial of former slaves' owner or those that carry sentiment of
colonial history e.g., in Australia by the aborigines8. It came to no surprise to the
researcher that in June and July of 2020, cancel culture was trending high on Google.

The Harper's Magazine 'A Letter on Justice and Open Debate' is significant to the
discourse of cancel culture as it speaks of discursive practices of the hegemonic power
and knowledge by the elites. In this case those working in cultural institutions such as
university professors, journalists and writers. The letter was signed by 153 people, the
majority was scholars and over half of these signatories are those working for higher
education institutions. While the elites recognize the need for greater equality and
inclusion in the society in general, cancel culture was moving faster than these cultural
institutions in imposing new norms and standards to what was deemed old social
practices.

In 2021 cancel culture is now a recognized phenomenon. Google Trends have reported
'cancel culture' continue to produce a high search result on the internet. There are
several notable events in the discourse of cancel culture in 2021. In January 2021,
Twitter cancelled Trump's social account for 'violation of its community rule for inciting
violence', this was after his post managed to draw his supporter to march and stormed
into Capital City, in Washington9. Trump's action during the Covid-19 when he used the
term as 'Kung-Flu' or 'Chinese virus' as a moniker to the virus, has resulted in the increase
of aggression towards the Asian-American community. Twitter also cancelled an

42
account managed by a Christian organization in January, The Daily Citizen for violating
the hate speech guidelines for its post on describing what a transgender person is to its
followers10. As per Bromwich (2018) article that quoted Nakamura sentiment that
people wish to control what is presented to them as social media platforms was
notoriously unregulated. This development, three years later where Twitter is cancelling
accounts of those in power, shows the hegemonic discourse of cancel culture where
elites are beginning to lose some of their privileges.

The last article featured in this thesis expresses concern on its effectiveness as a tool for
representation and voice of those marginalized such as for African Americans. The
article gave an example of NBA Football player, Colin Kaepernick, whose name is
synonymous with the discourse of cancel culture. In 2016, Kaepernick knelt during the
national anthem as a protest to the differential treatment by the police towards black
Americans, and due to this act, he was cancelled by his team the San Francisco 49ers
and by the National Football League (NFL). He remained unsigned by any team as of the
time of writing this thesis. The last article argued that cancel culture has transformed
to being a cause du jour among conservative celebrities and politicians rather than an
active social justice tool for representation and voice of the marginalized and minority
people.

6. Conclusion

To answer the first research question on how does cancel culture determine whose
representation and voice is heard, I concluded from my timeline critical discourse
analysis that it transformed from being a tool for the representation and voice of
marginalized groups such as women and the LGBT in 2017, to a punishment tool by fans
towards offensive behaviour of celebrities in 2018 (Bromwhich,2018). This is due to
misappropriation by politicians that had used it to cancel out their opponents (Rueb et.
al.2019), that it lost its role as a tool to represent minority voices in 2019 (Hagi,2019). In
2020 cancel culture reaches a peak level as Twitter users uses it as an expansion of
representation and voice by African Americans during the reignition of the
43
#BlackLivesMatter movement (Madani,2020). The Covid-19 pandemic brought a new
area of representation in the form of differential in social class during the lockdown. For
example, in the case of Ellen DeGeneres, when she compared being in lockdown in her
luxury homes to being in prison leading to her losing support from her own LGBT
community. 2021 sees cancel culture development in its use by social media platforms
such as Twitter to cancel those account deemed to have violated communities' rule such
as with Trump's permanent suspension. In the most recent development of cancel
culture in the USA, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) a pro-Trump,
has adopted "America Uncanceled "for its conference campaign slogan scheduled in July
202111.

Figure 3. Own illustration of timeline of critical discourse analysis on cancel culture

In summary, cancel culture's effect on representation and voice is dependent on two

factors. The first is what being discussed, who is discussing it and who is listening. In the
CDA of online articles, the representation and voice were reflected by the author of the
article. While I did not investigate in depth the genre of the publications, each article
does convey a distinctive tone in its writing. To perform a brief comparison between the
articles, the article in 2018, which was featured in the style section of The New York
Times.com, and it discusses cancel culture amongst celebrities. The preceding article
analysed was from CNN.com, and it discusses cancel culture amongst politicians.

44
The second is external event effects cancel culture online. As seen from the timeline
critical discourse analysis, several events did propelled cancel culture and its coverage
of representation and voice. Events such as the appointment of Donald Trump as the
President of the US saw women and the LGBT movement cancelling patriarchy and
gender identity conformity. Any association by a celebrity with former President Trump,
has subjected them to cancellation as seen in the Kanye West case in 2018. In 2019 both
liberals and conservative politicians were using cancel culture to oust their opponents
through the calling out of an old post from Twitter that was deemed offensive. Cancel
culture became the representation and voice for either liberal or conservative politicians
to oust each other. In 2020 the death of George Floyd propelled cancel culture into the
public sphere when the BLM movement demanded justice through demonstrations and
protests that spread worldwide. This movement led to multiple destructions of historical
sites and the demand for mentioning of anyone, who have ties to slavery and racism be
erased. The Covid-19 pandemic too have affected the discourse of cancel culture and its
effect on representation and voice, by its use to cancel and anyone who took to Twitter
or other social media platform to, for example, to speak negatively about the lockdown.
At present, cancel culture demonstrates the potential to affect anyone who is not
conforming to some form of new norms. The new norms may well be the evolving
discourse on representation and voice, be it of gender identity, of race identity, or of
political ideologies.

In summary, cancel culture is an online activism which has the working both as a tool for
social justice and as a form of online harassment. It has worked for marginalized groups
for example of women in the #Metoo movement to emphasize their representation and
voice in the entertainment industry through the cancelling of sexual harassment
practises. In cultural institutions, however, cancel culture have caused concern to
academics and writers when it has said to restrict open debates and stifled academic
freedoms. Editors of newspapers are being fired for writing controversial pieces and
university professors speaking appearances are canceled due to having a differing
opinion on certain matters. With this in view, cancel culture phenomenon warrants a

45
further study on its effect on representation and voice especially in understanding the
aftermath of a cancelling act, whether a social change has occurred.

6.1. Implication for C4D and representation and voice

It is challenging to draw any hard conclusion from this research if indeed cancel culture
do effect representation and voice, as this research is limited to using selected online
articles based on the highest returned search on Google Trends. The selected articles
also speak of various representations and voices as it depended on which publication
and who is the author of the article. What this thesis did manage to produce are the
implications for C4D around cancel culture and representation and voice is the lagging
behind academic studies to address this matter timely. As an example, one of the
implication for C4D practitioners is to identify issues concerning representation and
voice, that may cause either a person or an organization to be cancelled. With the
advancement of new media and technology, not just social media platforms but other
media form such as podcasts for example will lead to new norms. Some of these norms
have already proven challenging as seen currently with the evolving of the social
practises on social media platform from boycotts and cancel culture. The demand for
broader representation and voice will see the call for more inclusion and diversity. One
that goes beyond race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and political ideology, to one
that could and will include new social norms or practices that is yet to be defined.

46
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Appendix 1: Google Trends search term 'cancel culture' from 1 January 2015 to 31
March 2021

Figure 4.Cancel culture 2015 - 2021 on Google Trends

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Appendix 2. Google Search returns for online articles for CDA for 2018

55
Appendix 3: Disclaimer

This is a disclaimer that I am aware of the guideline set by Malmo University, that
modern academy writing requires precision and care when writing about race, gender
and class and to avoid generalisations and words that convey old-fashioned racial or
sexual stereotypes. As a researcher, I stress that all references made towards race,
gender and class are following the way it is referenced by all mentioned literature and
articles in this thesis.

By nature, cancel culture in its essence touches sensitive topic such as race, gender and
sexual orientation and what cancel culture has contributed to the discourse of
representation and voice cannot be analysed without going back on some of the
stereotypes and some painful historical terms used for example in Twitter posts or
articles quote from the internet especially, since it is an online phenomenon where
public participation is vast and often uncensored.

In no way is there any intention of this research to underplay what racism, sexism or
other discriminatory and derogatory terminology has done to all affected especially
those in marginalized groups and those without the recourse to social justice.

On my own narrative when I speak of gender identities as I declare myself a cis

heterosexual woman may also limit my descriptive language when writing on non-binary
genders in this thesis.

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Endnotes

1
Amnesty reveals alarming impact of social abuse against women (2017). Retrieved
from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/11/amnesty-reveals-alarming-
impact-of-online-abuse-against-women/ accessed on 18 May 2021.

2 Romano, Aja (2019, December 19) J.K. Rowling's latest tweet seems like transphobic
BS. Her fans are heartbroken. Retrieved from
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/19/21029852/jk-rowling-terf-transphobia-
history-timeline

3 Gertsman, G. (2021) San Francisco Votes to Remove Founding Fathers' Names From
School At Up to $1 Million in Taxpayer Expense. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2021/01/27/san-francisco-votes-to-
remove-founding-fathers-names-from-schools-at-up-to-1-million-in-taxpayer-
expense/?sh=86e58a354be2

4Reid, W (2018) Black Twitter 101: What is it? Where did it originate? Where is it
headed? Retrieve from: https://news.virginia.edu/content/black-twitter-101-what-it-
where-did-it-originate-where-it-headed accessed on 24 May 2021.

5
Davies, D. (2021) Meet the 7 Most Popular Search Engines in the World. Retrieved
from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101/meet-search-engines/#close
accessed 15 May 2021.

6 Capatides, C. (2020). Ellen DeGeneres facing backlash for comparing self-quarantine

to "being in jail". Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ellen-degeneres-
quarantine-jail-comparison-backlash/ accessed on 19 May 2021.

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7 Altman, A. (2020). Why The Killing of George Floyd Sparked and American Uprising.
Retrieved from https://time.com/5847967/george-floyd-protests-trump/ accessed on
19 May 2021.

8Baker, Nick (2020) As 'racist statues' topple around the world, Australia is being urged
to address its own monuments, Retrieved from: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/as-
racist-statues-topple-around-the-world-australia-is-being-urged-to-address-its-own-
monuments accessed on 23 May 2021.

9 Retrieved from
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html accessed on
19 May 2021.

10 Morris, A. (2021) Focus on the Family's 'Daily Citizen' Still Banned by Twitter,
Accused of 'Hateful Conduct'. Retrieved from
https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2021/february/twitter-censors-focus-on-the-
family-accuses-them-of-hateful-conduct accessed on 19 May 2021.

11
Paskal, Cleo (2021), America cancelled: Conservative fears come to the fore at CPAC.
Retrieved from https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/america-cancelled-
conservative-fears-come-fore-cpac accessed 22 May 2021.

58