I Correct or Canceling You

Abstract

This contribution studies the debated terms “politically correct” and “cancel culture” on Twitter and in particular investigates the meaning that people give when they label something or someone as politically correct or indicate a case of cancel culture in the Italian context, where they are not yet widespread as they are in the USA and Britain. A textual analysis of a corpus of tweets selected through a set of hashtags was carried out to identify thematic clusters to understand features and meanings given to these expressions, along with their ways of using in the various situations and contexts. The main results show different meanings of the term, in the negative sense as a limitation of freedom of speech, and in a positive sense as the exclusion of some terms that may offend some people or groups. In this case, the meaning of a word is relative and depends on the situation and context in which it is used. Furthermore, the recourse in the discourses of cancel culture is only rhetorical; there are no actions of cancellation or boycott of someone or something.

#Cancelled: A qualitative content analysis of cancel culture in the YouTube beauty community

“…Clark (2020) described cancel culture as 'an expression of agency, a choice to withdraw one's attention from someone whose values, (in)action or speech are so offensive, one no longer wishes to grace them with presence, time and money'. Cancel culture originated from social activism on the social media platform Twitter (Felaco et al, 2022;Ng, 2020;Tandoc et al, 2022). It first appeared within the context of Black Twitter, and became more mainstream with the adoption of hashtags as part of the Twitter algorithm (Clark, 2020;Ng, 2022).…”

“…This laid the basis for new forms of social activism, known as cancel culture. The origins of cancel culture and cancelling can be traced back to Black Twitter and Black cultural practices of dissing and calling out others, practices that mix jokiness and entertainment with critique and political activism to educate others on the inappropriateness of certain statements and actions (Clark, 2020;Felaco et al, 2022;Ng, 2022;Tandoc et al, 2022). In a way, the practice resembles political correctness, or actively avoiding offense by monitoring language and actions to strive for social justice (Felaco et al, 2022).…”

“…The origins of cancel culture and cancelling can be traced back to Black Twitter and Black cultural practices of dissing and calling out others, practices that mix jokiness and entertainment with critique and political activism to educate others on the inappropriateness of certain statements and actions (Clark, 2020;Felaco et al, 2022;Ng, 2022;Tandoc et al, 2022). In a way, the practice resembles political correctness, or actively avoiding offense by monitoring language and actions to strive for social justice (Felaco et al, 2022). Many consider cancel culture as a positive trend, giving minorities a voice, holding individuals accountable for their misconduct, educating the public about issues such as racism, sexism and homophobia, and calling for reform (Tandoc et al, 2022).…”

“…Despite the good intentions, concerns and questions are being voiced about cancel culture being too extreme and bordering on bullying (Felaco et al, 2022;Ng, 2020;Tandoc et al, 2022). Some have even likened it to 'moral terrorism' (Heffer, 2020).…”

“…Some have even likened it to 'moral terrorism' (Heffer, 2020). Recently, research showed that while some see canceling as a way to respect others' rights, others see it as a radicalization of political correctness and a form of censorship (Felaco et al, 2022). It has also been argued that canceling action may inadvertently take the focus away from the broader societal issues that underlie the cancelation (e.g., racism, sexism, homophobia), by focusing on anger and outrage at one or a few individuals (Bouvier, 2020;Bouvier & Machin, 2021).…”