Discourse in the Age of Cancel Culture: An Analysis of Twitter’s Polarising Conversations

Abstract

Public prosecution is nothing new but online social networking platforms such as Twitter have taken the social phenomenon to a new level with a brand new name: ‘canceling’. As canceling is becoming a more prominent and influential social phenomenon, a so-called ‘cancel culture’ has started to form. Cancel culture is a term often meant as a critique by people who believe the judgements made about the canceled individual(s) have created a culture of hypercriticism. Theories on intra- and inter-group polarization are utilized to understand why discourse on Twitter about canceling a person has the ability to lead to group polarization. By collecting 717 Tweets and doing a qualitative analysis in Nvivo multiple insights were found. Social comparisons appear to have an exacerbating effect on the opinions of the users along with the group memberships of the Twitter users as well. Future research on these found effects are needed as the subject is badly under-researched, yet could possibly have a significant impact on group polarization.