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Cancel Culture in Academia: Social Media Self-presentation in the Context of Imagined Surveillance
Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how academics in the United States described their social media self-presentations (SMSPs) in the context of imagined surveillance. Moral Reasoning Theory drove two RQs: (1) How do academics describe construction of SMSPs in the context of imagined surveillance? (2) How do academics describe the influence of imagined surveillance on their personal SMSPs? 106 academics from across the U.S. were recruited by convenience sampling from two scholarly associations. Data were collected from closed-/open-ended questionnaires (n=102) and semi-structured interviews (n=20). Data analysis applied a six-phased Reflexive Thematic Analysis procedure of inductive coding to generate five themes and 14 subthemes. Academics described SMSP construction as negotiating (1) promises and perils of in/visibility, including (a) unspoken rules, (b) overlapping identities, (c) social support, and (d) personal opinion-sharing, which was profoundly shaped by (2) the rise of cancel culture, or an (a) enforced ideology, (b) activist subgroup, and (c) pressure to signal support. Imagined surveillance influenced SMSPs toward (3) protection over participation by (a) withdrawal from social media, viewing (b) tenure as insufficient, and (c) safe social media strategies; (4) trepidation while teaching due to (a) classroom recording prompted (b) strategic instruction; and (5) resistance and rebellion to (a) push back on cancel culture with a (b) duty to speak out. This study advanced understanding of social media surveillance as a normalizing force on speech and behavior. Findings may be applied to policy and practice regarding social media use in education and other professional settings.
... Research on social media self-presentation has evolved from the study of online privacy, showing that privacy and self-presentation are complex and contextual processes (Rotolo, 2022). Internet users strategically posted material that they deemed appropriate for their intended audience and the social context, including the persons they expected to read their messages. ...
... Internet users strategically posted material that they deemed appropriate for their intended audience and the social context, including the persons they expected to read their messages. However, their assessments of the viewers were often inaccurate since self-presentational goals may influence or restrict practically all types of behavior as individuals try to avoid being socially undesirable (Rotolo, 2022). ...
... Individuals on the front stage tend to behave in a way that meets the expectations of others; meanwhile, the backstage refers to the place where front-line behavior is prepared. However, Rotolo (2022) added that self-presentation is complicated when audiences, social norms, and values are unclear, and people may behave differently when uncertain of how they will be judged. ...
In the present day, the act of posting self-portraits, also known as selfies, is widely regarded as one of the most prevalent behaviors linked to the use of social media. Taking a selfie opens a new set of windows for activating specific identities, and over time and with readily available technological means, individuals are able to carefully construct online identities by editing their appearance and idealizing their self-portraits. The research discusses selfie-posting behavior in which to find out what the users are doing or constructing selfies before posting them. The primary aim of the current research is to examine these steps, specifically the context in motives, pre-occupation, selection of selfies, and selfie editing before posting. This study intended to focus on the social media users among Malaysians who engage in selfie activities. This research used a nonprobability sampling design, which is purposive sampling. The online questionnaire was administered as a cross-sectional survey, with data collected within a few months. This survey received 150 responses, and PLS SEM 4.0 was used to gather and analyze the data. Given the Selfie-Stadium Model, the finding showed that all variables are statistically significantly correlated to the following step. This research provides practical insights for developers to explore novel methods of improving device functionality and leveraging multitasking capabilities. Additionally, social media users can fully utilize device functions and benefit from technological advancements.
... Being canceled is seen as a legitimate threat, and the perceived effect of this potentiality promotes the silencing of iconoclasts, the promotion of groupthink, and the stifling of social progress at the macro level [17,30]. For example, there is a rich body of scholarship dedicated to the ways researchers react to their work being engaged with by social media audiences [31][32][33][34][35]. Thus, one potential method to prevent cancelation is to closely monitor one's presentation online by engaging in selfcensorship [7,36,37]. ...
... However, as Lofton [32] argued, "myths" are not the opposite of "facts." Cancel culture holds power as an idea, and if people believe it exists, then it is real enough to exert influence [7,17,32,33]. Our data corroborates the power of cancel culture, at least as a social representation, as the vast majority (80%) of our participants had heard of cancel culture and could, even if loosely, define it. ...
The concept of cancel culture has gained traction over the past 10 years, with the continuous rise of social media and online platforms. The limited literature on this topic tends to focus on possible definitions and characteristics. However, we have yet to fully understand how cancel culture, canceling, and canceling prevention impact individuals and their lives. As such, we set out to build an empirical base that would allow us to delimit, understand, and study these individual impacts of cancel culture by proposing a new model—the pressure for a perfect conduct (PPC) model. We interviewed 20 people from different age groups to understand how cancel culture impacts their lives and which variables could be related to the pressure that derives from it. We also gathered data on their opinion regarding our proposed model and key variable, “PPC.” Our results seem to indicate that our model and the PPC variable can be used in the study of cancel culture’s individual impacts. Additionally, participants posited that this pressure negatively impacts individuals’ mental health, opinion construction, and social media participation. Furthermore, they reported that cancelling can be performed by and to anyone, not being limited to powerful figures. Further results and potential future studies are discussed. This work can help unlock future research on the topic by bringing forth a novel way to tackle it, as well as by exploring some of cancel culture’s implications at an individual level.
... This term refers to the actions taken to defame someone and decrease their support after they have behaved in a way that is generally regarded as problematic or socially unacceptable (Ng, 2022). Cancel culture has escalated into a mass movement used on social media to criticize, target, and punish those with differing opinions, often in an attempt to reinforce a power imbalance (Romano, 2021;Rotolo, 2022;Shibley and Barnes, 2022;Vogels et al., 2021). With the frequent use of social media by adolescents and young adults today, most college students will have encountered "cancel culture" at some point in their lives (Atske, 2021;Perrin, 2015;Vogels, 2022). ...
Controversial topics are important parts of academic discussions, and due to the nature of these topics, students may be reluctant to speak freely about them in college classrooms. This study aims to explore factors that influence students’ reluctance to speak at a small midwest college, and the effect this may have on academic performance. We surveyed 233 undergraduates to evaluate the connection between campus expression and academic performance through the hypothesis that there is an inverse relationship between reluctance to speak and grade-point-average. A t-test was used to examine whether the number of topics students are reluctant to speak about is related to GPA, and found that the average GPA of students who are reluctant about a moderate number of topics is higher than those reluctant about an extreme number. We also explored the hypothesis that students who are reluctant to speak about controversial topics in the classroom are more concerned that peers will criticize their views as offensive than they are about criticism from professors or on social media. A McNemar’s Chi-Square test was used to analyze the results to determine which factor students were more concerned about. Students were more concerned about their peers than about their professors or being posted on social media. These results may highlight targets in classroom structure for attempting to decrease reluctance to speak.
... In particular, preventive behavior seems to be setting in. This is expressed by the fact that certain statements are not expressed or published (Norris, 2023;Rotolo Jr, 2022). ...
Science is critical and thrives on discourse. However, new challenges for science and academic freedom have arisen from an often‐discussed cancel culture and an increasing demand for safe spaces, which are justified by their assumed protection against microaggressions. These phenomena can impede scientific progress and innovation by prohibiting certain thought processes and heterodox ideas that eventually result in new ideas, publications, statements, etc. In this paper, we use the approach of property rights ethics to shed light on these phenomena, especially in academia. First, we argue that microaggressions must be generally tolerated according to property rights ethics as the starting point for discussion. Then, we analyze cancel culture and safe spaces in academia. To this end, we distinguish between two basic cases in the educational system. We show that cancel culture and safe spaces seem justifiable in a private education system but have no place in public, tax‐funded universities from the perspective of property ethics. Our essay contributes, on the one hand, to the economic analysis of science and, on the other hand, to the ethical study of new phenomena in modern societies.
The purpose of this study is to introduce the notion and characteristics of the Cancel Culture based on the Grounded Theory and to open a forum for discussion on conflicting perspectives. To this end, this study aimed to suggest implications by qualitatively following the logic of the Grounded Theory with related cases and examining their impact, focusing on the recent exclusion of Russian arts and culture among international institutions. The notion of Cancel Culture is a movement of depriving public figures of their social status or professions by publicly discrediting and boycotting those who are judged to be unethical and immoral. It might appear to be effective when legal remedies are not appropriate, by requesting immediate correction in an informal manner. On the other hand, due to the nature of public opinion driven by private censorship, it is apt to lose neutrality and tolerance, and thus threaten freedom of expression, besides undermining human rights. Under the circumstances that the Cancel Culture is getting attention as a social concern around the world, this study could be meaningful in identifying the need for related research to open a public forum in domestic arts and academic communities.
Background: In educational research, online survey has become one of the most popular methods of data collection. Academic researchers, including faculty and students, expect and require a good response rate to their research projects for reliable results. Purpose: In this paper, the authors examine a wide range of factors related to survey response rates in academic research. Examples include email checking habits, survey design, and attitudes toward research. Setting: An online survey environment Intervention: Not applicable. Research Design: A cross-sectional quantitative research method was used to analyze the factors that influence participants’ email survey response rate. Data were collected at a single point in time. The authors did not directly measure changes that come over time in this study. Data Collection and Analysis: After receiving the Institutional Research Board’s approval, the researchers distributed the survey via the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Graduate Student Discussion List subscribers. A sample of 454 responses was used in the final analysis-- with a 78.9 % response rate. The authors used descriptive statistics (percentage, average mean) and inferential statistics (chi-square and correlations) to report the data analysis and findings. Findings: Results indicated that research survey response rate was highly influenced by interests of participants, survey structure, communication methods, and assurance of privacy and confidentiality. The findings also suggested that male participants were more likely to respond to surveys if they received a reminder, and older participants were more likely to respond if they were promised a reward.
Experts in human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) and related fields have the ability and responsibility to broadly serve the needs and goals of diverse people, which encompasses issues of inclusion, equity, and justice. Importantly, HF/E designers, researchers, and practitioners can address these aims both as the intended outcomes of their work and how the work itself is conducted. Both pathways support progress toward more inclusive and equitable organizations and societies. This paper focuses upon one aspect of inclusive methodology—strategies for inclusive sampling. Sampling is an important focus because of its fundamental role in defining the internal and external validity of findings. Moreover, sampling is how diverse participants and perspectives are incorporated (or not), and thus represents an early way that exclusion, inequity, or inaccessibility may manifest. Three heuristic questions and six sets of strategies are briefly articulated: (1) purposive sampling, (2) oversampling, (3) community sampling, (4) removing barriers of distance, cost, communication, and awareness, (5) building trust, and (6) inclusive demographic categories. A variety of sources are cited to facilitate readers’ further consideration of these issues in their own HF/E endeavors.
While online harassment is recognized as a significant problem, most scholarship focuses on descriptions of harassment and its effects. We lack explanations of why people engage in online harassment beyond simple bias or dislike. This article puts forth an explanatory model where networked harassment on social media functions as a mechanism to enforce social order. Drawing from examples of networked harassment taken from qualitative interviews with people who have experienced harassment ( n = 28) and Trust & Safety workers at social platforms ( n = 9), the article builds on Brady, Crockett, and Bavel’s model of moral contagion to explore how moral outrage is used to justify networked harassment on social media. In morally motivated networked harassment, a member of a social network or online community accuses a target of violating their network’s norms, triggering moral outrage. Network members send harassing messages to the target, reinforcing their adherence to the norm and signaling network membership. Frequently, harassment results in the accused self-censoring and thus regulates speech on social media. Neither platforms nor legal regulations protect against this form of harassment. This model explains why people participate in networked harassment and suggests possible interventions to decrease its prevalence.
A question that qualitative researchers are asked frequently is how they justify generalizing their finding to populations. In this article, I argue that this question results from a misunderstanding of generalization that conflates of the logic and mechanics of statistical generalization with that inherent in the process typically used in qualitative methods, which does not rely on probability sampling procedures. To clarify the differences in these processes, I propose the concept of qualitative generalization. It is built upon the work of scholars who have identified the logic of qualitative research as rooted in a cycle of inferential processes that identify forms of stability and variation in their data. Instead of using probability sampling to capture variability in samples which reflects that in a population, qualitative researchers use this cycle to develop a map of variation in their data, which reflects the practice and experience of the phenomena under study—a logic describing generalization to the phenomenon, not the population. The initial application of this self-correcting cycle of inferences underpins the later stage of transferability of findings by readers. The framework of methodological integrity is considered to explain how research goals, epistemological perspectives, and study characteristics (e.g., diversity) influence the identification of variation and, ultimately, qualitative generalization. This framework orients researchers to identify variation that can increase fidelity and utility, supporting qualitative generalization. The formulation of qualitative generalization proposed is seen as congruent with existing practices across a variety of qualitative traditions and with reasoning intrinsic to qualitative methods.
In this essay, we reconstruct a keyword for communication—affordance. Affordance, adopted from ecological psychology, is now widely used in technology studies, yet the term lacks a clear definition. This is especially problematic for scholars grappling with how to theorize the relationship between technology and sociality for complex socio-technical systems such as machine-learning algorithms, pervasive computing, the Internet of Things, and other such “smart” innovations. Within technology studies, emerging theories of materiality, affect, and mediation all necessitate a richer and more nuanced definition for affordance than the field currently uses. To solve this, we develop the concept of imagined affordance. Imagined affordances emerge between users’ perceptions, attitudes, and expectations; between the materiality and functionality of technologies; and between the intentions and perceptions of designers. We use imagined affordance to evoke the importance of imagination in affordances—expectations for technology that are not fully realized in conscious, rational knowledge. We also use imagined affordance to distinguish our process-oriented, socio-technical definition of affordance from the “imagined” consensus of the field around a flimsier use of the term. We also use it in order to better capture the importance of mediation, materiality, and affect. We suggest that imagined affordance helps to theorize the duality of materiality and communication technology: namely, that people shape their media environments, perceive them, and have agency within them because of imagined affordances.
This paper explores the suppression of ideas within an academic scholarship by academics, either by self-suppression or because of the efforts of other academics. Legal, moral, and social issues distinguishing freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry, and academic freedom are reviewed. How these freedoms and protections can come into tension is then explored by an analysis of denunciation mobs that exercise their legal free speech rights to call for punishing scholars who express ideas they disapprove of and condemn. When successful, these efforts, which constitute legally protected speech, will suppress certain ideas. Real-world examples over the past five years of academics that have been sanctioned or terminated for scholarship targeted by a denunciation mob are then explored.
In this article, we offer a psychoanalytic reading of controversies over “rapid onset gender dysphoria” (popularly known as ROGD), defined as a sudden expression of gender dysphoria in late adolescence and young adulthood where there had not purportedly been evidence of childhood dysphoric experience. We begin by tracing the emergence of the term in relation to contemporary debates about gender, free speech, and academic freedom. Turning to the psychoanalytic concept of free association, we reframe speech as bound to the unconscious and theorize the ethical qualities of animating this linkage in relation to discussions of gender diversity and ROGD in particular. Our discussion supports theorists, clinicians, parents, teachers, and other caring adults who encounter the term to distinguish between collective anxiety and the labor of thought that involves working through feelings of coming undone in the undoing of cisgender.
The Panopticon is a popular metaphor in discussions about mass surveillance. Drawing on deterrence theory and chilling effects, we provide two empirical tests of this analogy to examine whether perceptions of online government surveillance suppress or entirely eradicate an array of sensitive online activities. Study 1 indicates that surveillance significantly deters individuals’ intentions to engage in illegal offenses, an effect that extends to political, but not privacy-protective behaviors. Study 2 retests the pervasiveness of this effect with a sample of Muslims who reside in the United States. Results indicate that restrictive chilling effects are not specific to any one online population, experimental stimuli, or political context. Implications for US political and social systems are discussed.
