Abstract (eng)
Cancel Culture is on everyone's lips, yet a broad understanding of the phenomenon within society is hardly given. This paper thus addresses this explanation and embedding of the phenomenon of cancel culture and differentiates it from the mere act of canceling, as an independent term. In doing so, the conceptuality is subjected to a socio-historical analysis and related to identity-political themes within the state of research as well as to its political entanglements, as a "right-wing fighting concept". Furthermore, a discourse analysis based on Michel Foucault's power-theoretical framework is conducted, which includes 786 postings on the social media platform Twitter. Based on these, catch phrases are based on Gamson and according to Keller's guide for qualitative discourse analysis. Special attention is paid to the power-theoretical entanglements within the discourse of cancel culture. As a result, two speaker positions crystallize: On the one hand, the persons who perceive the Cancel Culture as a threat and an enemy image and fear a shift of power away from their own privileges. These dominate the discourse around the Cancel Culture and accordingly have more discourse-internal resources and generated power. On the other hand, there are people who do not define themselves as followers of cancel culture, but who do not see it as a threat. Due to the consistently negative connotation of the term, however, no self-identification with the phenomenon of cancel culture takes place here and is replaced by other mechanisms, such as the creation of myths and the use of irony. Finally, it becomes apparent that the disciplinary power of the Internet negotiates prevailing moral concepts within society and is intended to contribute to the preservation of social order.