Platforming Cancel Culture: Digital Media, Identity and Cultural Intersections delves into one of the most polarizing phenomena of the digital age. Bringing together global, intersectional, and interdisciplinary perspectives, this edited collection unpacks the evolving dynamics of cancel culture, examining its practices and implications across diverse political and cultural landscapes.
While some hail cancel culture as a tool for social justice, amplifying marginalized voices and calling out systemic inequalities, others critique it as performative virtue signalling or a form of censorship. This book navigates these tensions by analysing the complex interplay of digital platforms and governance mechanisms that shape cancel culture. It explores how platform architectures enable or resist cancel practices, how narratives and media discourses surrounding cancel culture are constructed and contested, and how these dynamics differ across national and cultural contexts.
The contributors engage with cutting-edge research and offer localized insights from a range of contexts—including India, South Africa, China, Southeast Europe, the United States, and Russia—to challenge the universalizing assumptions often made about cancel culture. Methodologically diverse, the book employs sentiment and corpus analysis, digital ethnography, interviews, case studies, and critical cultural studies to provide a multifaceted examination of this volatile site of politics and cultural expression.
By weaving together perspectives from the humanities, social sciences, and cultural studies, Platforming Cancel Culture presents a nuanced understanding of how cancel culture functions as a driver of accountability and a locus of contested power. This collection is an essential resource for scholars, students, and anyone seeking to critically engage with the intersections of digital media, culture, and identity in the 21st century.
List of Figures Chapter 1: The Cancellation Will be Digitised: Navigating Cancel Culture Across Culture, Digital Spaces and Platforms Páraic Kerrigan, Elizabeth Farries, and Eugenia Siapera Section I: Toppling Statues and Contested Histories: Cancel Culture, Memory, and the Digital Sphere Chapter 2: Erasing History? Statue Removal, Cancel Culture and Digital Maps Jennifer Keohane Chapter 3: Cancelling Whose History? The Case of the Bowman and the Spearman Statue Removal and Southeast European Views Monika Cverlin, Marijana Musladin, and Mato Brautović Section II: Global Perspectives on Cancel Culture: Nationalism, Resistance, and Marginalization Chapter 4: Cancel Culture and China's Multi-Ethnic National Imaginary: Social Media, Nationalism, and Silencing Dissent Dean Phelan Chapter 5: Manufacturing anger: exploring discursive constructions of cancel culture on X in India Anilesh Kumar and Quang Minh Nguyet Nguyen Chapter 6: Cancel Culture in Russia: A Concept Lost in Translation Sergei A. Samoilenko, Olga Logunova, and Ivan Grek Chapter 7: Cancelling Progress? Cancel Culture and the Marginalisation of Malayali LGBTQIA+ Communities in Kerala, India Christo Jacob Section III: Celebrity, Fandom, and the Ethics of Cancellation Chapter 8: The Frankenstein Malady: Batwoman ‘fans’ and the Appropriation of Cancel Culture Natalie Le Clue Chapter 9: Cancel Culture Right Now: Consent Culture and Aziz Ansari’s Comedic Celebrity Confessional Sabrina Moro and Claire Sedgwick Chapter 10: Gendered Perspectives of Cancel Culture: South African Celebrity Cases on X Kealeboga Aiseng
Paraic Kerrigan is an assistant professor in the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin. His research focuses on the intersections of digital media, communication, and social justice, with particular attention to issues of gender and sexuality. Elizabeth Farries is an assistant professor in the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin, where she is co-director of the Centre for Digital Policy. Her research lies at the intersection of new technologies and regulation, with a focus on digital policy cycles and assemblages emerging in the Digital Transformation. Eugenia Siapera is a professor in the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin, where she is co-director of the Centre for Digital Policy. Her research interests are in the areas of digital and social media, political communication, and journalism.
