A “cultura do cancelamento” na Folha de São Paulo: o enquadramento jornalístico de uma nova forma de ação coletiva

Abstract

This work intends to analyze “cancel culture” as a new phenomenon of collective action in the digital era based on its framing by Folha de São Paulo’s journalism. Due to the considerable influence of digital platforms on new forms of collective action in contemporary times, the act of “cancelling” has been receiving repercussions due to it being a new repertoire of essentially media-based action, which is associated with attitudes of intolerance, understood as a threat to freedom of expression, derived from socially recurrent practices, such as boycott and the “dictatorship of political correctness”, at the same manner it is identified as a new form of activism that seeks social justice. The analysis of its media framing in a journalistic vehicle allows us to conceive how the debate around this topic reaches a wide audience and how journalism reconfigured in the digital era deals with such a phenomenon characterized by the instant mobilization of users in a competitive attention market, influencing public opinion. Thus, this research investigates how Folha de São Paulo's journalism creates a framework for this new commonly called “cancel culture”, in order to reflect on the scope of this framework in the public and digital debate, which emphasizes the role of media in society. This is a qualitative documentary analysis of the journalistic framing of “cancel culture” by Folha de São Paulo, which involves fourteen (14) publications that point to a widespread phenomenon, used in different ways, that highlight specific external social and political actors and reproduce polarized notions, present in public debate.