Is capitalism driving cancel culture? Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this argument using examples.
Cancel culture is a huge topic of discussion in the media these days, particularly in the US, so what is driving cancel culture and why is it such a major phenomenon? Some argue capitalism is the force that’s driving cancel culture but is that really the case or is there something else that has made cancel culture so much more impactful than previous similar waves of boycotts or blacklistings.
Cancel culture is driven from popular culture and is the public shaming or humiliation of a person or company after they have said or done something considered objectionable or offensive. Importantly, a feature of cancel culture is its association with social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and this is what distinguishes it from similar movements in the past. In discussing what is driving cancel culture, it’s important to consider this in context of the modern digital media technology which is an essential part of cancel culture.
There are a few ways to think about how capitalism contributes to cancel culture. One idea is that corporations (especially large firms with well-known brands) are reacting to these social changes in order to protect themselves from backlash and boycotts of their company and its products. In fact some argue that the fear of a backlash, and a self preservation instinct is the primary motivation driving corporate responses to cancel culture (Lewis, 2020). There are plenty of examples of this, but I think the best examples are the ones where sporting codes have canceled or moved games, such as when the American Major League Baseball moved a game from Georgia over a restrictive voting law, or when the NBA did the same in North Carolina over a bill which limited anti-discrimination protections.
Others claim that the opportunity to boost profits or market share by associating with liberal causes, so-called ‘woke capitalism’, is the corporate driver. Either way these are certainly a factor in how companies respond to ‘cancellations’ and the fact that an issue raised in this way on social media can lead to strong action by a large recognisable company, is a strong motivator for people to keep using social media to call out bad behavior.
But I’m not sure this totally accounts for the phenomenon.
Sure, if no one with real power and influence was paying any attention to cancellations on social media, the phenomenon probably would have died down. At the same time, corporations have always been mindful of public opinion and have sought to align themselves with as broad a cross section of their market as possible. And while we’ve seen boycotts and sanctions of certain individuals or groups in the past, this hasn’t arisen to become the same sort of mass phenomenon as cancel culture.
A really good example of this is when the Dixie Chicks spoke out publicly about President George W Bush and the Iraq War in 2023. These comments created a huge backlash against the band, whose records dropped way down the charts, they were blacklisted by thousands of country music stations and they lost a promotional deal with the drink manufacturer, Lipton. This was pretty much what we call cancellation today, and the same corporate forces were at play. But there wasn’t a wave of this type of boycotting at the time and a social phenomenon didn’t emerge.
Check out this great podcast about the Dixie Chicks and the Iraq War!
So what’s different between then and now, well for one thing ‘social media’!!
Social media has been a major influence on cancel culture in two big ways. Firstly, the explosion of smartphones and the new social interactions unleashed by the apps is something completely new that has given millions of people access to information in a fundamentally different way. The public can not only access information in multiple forms (text, audio, video), they can do it anywhere and anytime. The internet and applications mean they can choose the source of that information from thousands of options.
The second and perhaps more important change, comes from disaggregation of control of media content. In the past broadcast media was controlled by a much smaller set of institutions and companies, with the resources to build and maintain the technology needed to broadcast to a wide audience. The success and reach of boycotts therefore depended on the sustained attention of the media. The creation of smartphones and social media applications meant that the ability to ‘broadcast’ a message to a huge audience was now accessible to anyone, including previously marginalised communities. In this way cancel culture can be seen as an expression of this agency that the public now possesses (Clark 2020).
In fact, I would argue that cancel culture is not fundamentally a product of capitalism, but instead is driven by the power of this new type of agency. As Meredith Clark puts it in her essay on the topic, ‘canceling a persona, place, or thing is a socially mediated phenomenon’ and the social media has vested this power in the hands of anyone with a smartphone. Capitalism certainly plays a role, and whether it’s fear of a backlash or seeking to take advantage of woke capitalism, the reaction of corporations makes certain cancellations a bigger story in mainstream media. But I believe it is the power of the public to express their agency and mediate a discussion on acceptable behaviour, that is the real driver of cancel culture as a 21st century phenomenon.
References
Bakhtiari, K. (2020, September 29). Why Brands Need To Pay Attention To Cancel Culture. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kianbakhtiari/2020/09/29/why-brands-need-to-pay-attention-to-cancel-culture/?sh=21e59d37645e
Blum, R. (2021, April 2). MLB All-Star Game yanked from Georgia over voting law. Retrieved from Toronto Star: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/us/2021/04/02/mlb-all-star-game-yanked-from-georgia-over-voting-law.html
Clark, M. D. (2020). DRAG THEM: A brief etymology of so-called “cancel culture”. Communication and the public, 5 (no. 3-4), 88–92.
Edelman. (2018, October 2). Two thirds of consumers worldwide now buy on beliefs. Retrieved from Edelman: https://www.edelman.com/news-awards/two-thirds-consumers-worldwide-now-buy-beliefs#:~:text=Nearly%20two%2Dthirds%20(64%20percent,13%20points%20from%20last%20year.
ESPN.com news services. (2016, July 22). NBA moves 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte over HB2 bill. Retrieved from ESPN: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/17120170/nba-moving-all-star-game-charlotte-north-carolina-bill
Lewis, H. (2020, July 14). How capitalism drives cancel culture. Retrieved from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/07/cancel-culture-and-problem-woke-capitalism/614086/
Marshall, S. (2021, May). The Chicks vs. The Iraq War. Retrieved from You're wrong about: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2c0QS31WFPITICkPnBSa5L?si=Q_TaO8vrQhWxm7hV42IEKw
Smith, G. (2015, November 19). Is country music ready to forgive the Dixie Chicks? Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/nov/19/the-dixie-chicks-tour-is-country-music-ready-to-forgive
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