**Principal investigator(s):** **James Fahey** University of Florida Email: jamesfahey@ufl.edu Homepage: https://www.jamesjfahey.com/ **Stephen Utych** Formerly Boise State University Email: stephenutych@boisestate.edu **Sample size:** 2009 **Field period:** 03/31/2021-07/01/2021 **Abstract** Political scientists have long been interested in the effects that media framings have on support or tolerance for controversial speech. In recent years, the concept of cancel culture has complicated our understanding of free speech. In particular, the modern Republican Party under Donald Trump has made “fighting cancel culture” a cornerstone of its electoral strategy. We expect that when extremist groups invoke cancel culture as a reason for their alleged censorship, support for their free speech rights among Republicans should increase. We use a nationally representative survey experiment to assess whether individuals’ opposition to cancel culture is principled or contingent on the ideological identity of the speaker. We show that framing free speech restrictions as the consequence of cancel culture does not increase support for free speech among Republicans. Further, when left-wing groups utilize the cancel culture framing, Republicans become even less supportive of those groups’ free speech rights. **Hypotheses** H1: Republican individuals exposed to treatments which blame cancel culture will increase their support for the rights of co-partisan and cross-partisan groups to protest. H2: Democrats exposed to treatments which blame cancel culture will decrease support for the rights of co-partisan and cross-partisan groups to protest. H3: When exposed to treatment conditions which explicitly blame cancel culture, negative opinions towards cancel culture will increase. **Experimental Manipulations** Respondents were assigned to one of four categories: Liberal * No Cancel, Liberal * Cancel, Conservative * No Cancel, Conservative * Cancel. They were then assigned to read an excerpt from a news article describing a protest at a college that was cancelled due to safety concerns. We strategically varied both the identity of the cancelled group (Antifa vs. The Proud Boys) as well as whether the cancellation was blamed on cancel culture or not. Two treatment texts appear below, the other two are identical except for replacing "Antifa" with "The Proud Boys" and "far-left" with "far-right." **Outcomes** Cancel culture (5 item Likert from "Definitely agree" to "Definitely disagree"): Generally speaking, do you agree with the following statement: "Cancel culture is a big problem in today's society." Antifa (7 item Likert from "Strongly agree" to "Strongly disagree": Please indicate the degree to which you agree with the following statement: Antifa should be allowed to conduct their demonstration at Ohio State University, even if there are some safety concerns." Proud Boys: (7 item Likert from "Strongly agree" to "Strongly disagree": Please indicate the degree to which you agree with the following statement: The Proud Boys should be allowed to conduct their demonstration at Ohio State University, even if there are some safety concerns. **Summary of Results** H1 predicted that Republicans exposed to cancel culture frames would increase their support for a groups' right to protest, regardless of partisan identity. We do not find this to be the case, as moving from the Proud Boys treatment which did not mention cancel culture was not associated with a statistically significant change in support for the free speech rights of the Proud Boys. In fact, for Republicans assigned to the Antifa arm, moving from not mentioning cancel culture to mentioning cancel culture actually significantly (p<.05) decreased support for the free speech rights of Antifa by approximately half a point on a five point scale. H2 predicted that Democrats exposed to cancel culture frames would decrease their support for a groups' right to protest, regardless of partisan identity. Again, we find little support for this hypothesis, as Democrats exposed to either of the cancel culture treatments (referencing Antifa or the Proud Boys) were not associated with any significant change for the support of free speech rights of Antifa or the Proud boys as compared to a condition which did not mention cancel culture. H3 predicted that invoking the term Cancel Culture would increase respondents' beliefs that cancel culture is a problem. After dividing respondents into two subsamples (assigned to Proud Boys or Antifa), we examine whether being assigned to the condition that mentions cancel culture is associated with an increase in belief that cancel culture is a problem (Cancel Culture DV). We find that none of the treatments are associated with belief that cancel culture is a problem. References Fahey, James J., Damon C. Roberts, and Stephen M. Utych. 2022. “Principled or Partisan? The Effect of Cancel Culture Framings on Support for Free Speech.” *American Politics Research*. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X221087601