Cancel Culture: Myth or Reality?
| Author | Pippa Norris |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00323217211037023 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217211037023
Political Studies
2023, Vol. 71(1) 145 –174
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00323217211037023
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Cancel Culture: Myth or
Reality?
Pippa Norris
Abstract
In recent years, a progressive “cancel culture” in society, right-wing politicians and commentators
claim, has silenced alternative perspectives, ostracized contrarians, and eviscerated robust
intellectual debate, with college campuses at the vanguard of this development. These arguments
can be dismissed as rhetorical dog whistles devoid of substantive meaning, myths designed to
fire up the MAGA faithful, outrage progressives, and distract from urgent real-world problems.
Given heated contention, however, something more fundamental may be at work. To understand
this phenomenon, the opening section defines the core concept and theorizes that perceptions
of this phenomenon are likely to depend upon how far individual values fit the dominant group
culture. Within academia, scholars most likely to perceive “silencing” are mismatched or non-
congruent cases, where they are “fish-out-of-water.” The next section describes how empirical
survey evidence is used to test this prediction within the discipline of political science. Data are
derived from a global survey, the World of Political Science, 2019, involving almost 2500 scholars
studying or working in over 100 countries. The next section describes the results. The conclusion
summarizes the key findings and considers their broader implications. Overall, the evidence
confirms the “fish-out-of-water” congruence thesis. As predicted, in post-industrial societies,
characterized by predominately liberal social cultures, like the US, Sweden, and UK, right-wing
scholars were most likely to perceive that they faced an increasingly chilly climate. By contrast,
in developing societies characterized by more traditional moral cultures, like Nigeria, it was left-
wing scholars who reported that a cancel culture had worsened. This contrast is consistent with
Noelle-Neumann’s spiral of silence thesis, where mainstream values in any group gradually flourish
to become the predominant culture, while, due to social pressures, dissenting minority voices
become muted. The ratchet effect eventually muffles contrarians. The evidence suggests that the
cancel culture is not simply a rhetorical myth; scholars may be less willing to speak up to defend
their moral beliefs if they believe that their views are not widely shared by colleagues or the wider
society to which they belong.
Keywords
academic freedom, sociology of education, cancel culture
Accepted: 16 July 2021
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Corresponding author:
Pippa Norris, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Email: pippa_norris@harvard.edu
1037023PSX0010.1177/00323217211037023Political StudiesNorris
research-article2021
Article
146 Political Studies 71(1)
Heated battles about the so-called “cancel culture” in Western societies and on college
campuses have intensified in recent years following allegations of morally offensive
words and deeds, many involving claims of racism and ethnocentrism, anti-Semitism and
Islamophobia, sexual harassment and abuse, misogyny and agism, and homophobia and
transphobia. Cases are exemplified in American popular entertainment by notorious
cause célèbres, such as O.J. Simpson, Roseanne Barr, and Michael Jackson. The phenom-
enon has claimed scalps among well-known media celebrities (like the comedian Louis
C.K.), leading politicians (e.g. former Senator Al Franken), authors (J.K. Rowling), books
(Dr Seuss), and corporate executives (such as Roger Ailes at Fox News). It has been
blamed for book deals being torn up, editors and journalists demoted or fired, and public
intellectuals attacked.
But do claims about a growing “cancel culture” curtailing free speech on college cam-
puses reflect a pervasive myth, fueled by angry partisan rhetoric, or do these arguments
reflect social reality? To understand this phenomenon, the opening section unpacks the
core concept, reviews normative debates, and considers explanations of this phenome-
non. The study theorizes that perceptions of being “silenced” in academia will depend
primarily upon whether individual scholars hold moral values which are congruent with
the group, community, or society. Figure 1 depicts a simple typology where the dominant
culture in society (on the horizontal axis) is compared with the dominant ideological val-
ues of the individual (on the vertical axis). The heuristic model, elaborated more fully
later, illustrates the key relationships. Perceptions of “silencing” are predicted by congru-
ence theory to be greatest in mismatched cases, or “fish-out-of-water.”
This argument draws upon several previous accounts. The classic “spiral of silence”
thesis provides a useful starting point. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (1974, 1984) theorized
that perceptions of being in the majority or minority in opinions within any group affects
processes of interpersonal communications, especially the open expression of attitudes
and beliefs about deeply polarizing moral issues. Social pressures from the group, both
implicit (unspoken) cues and explicit viewpoints, are predicted to influence the willing-
ness to speak out with confidence or to be more reticent. Consequently, extreme hetero-
dox claims—such as Holocaust deniers, defenders of the Ku Klux Klan, supporters of
DOMINANT SOCIETAL CULTURE
Socially conservave Socially liberal
INDIVIDUAL SEULAVLACIGOLOEDI
Socially
conservave
Congruent
Non-congruent:
Percepons of silencing
Socially liberal
Non-congruent:
Percepons of silencing
Congruent
Figure 1. Heuristic Typology in Congruence Theory.
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