On Thursday September 8th, 2022, the world was shocked with the news of the passing of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II at age 96. Both the United Kingdom, the 53 other countries over which she reigned, along with the rest of the world collectively mourned the devastating loss.
The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon.
The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/VfxpXro22W
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) September 8, 2022
The news of her passing came shortly after Buckingham palace announced that the Queen had fallen ill. It was said that the palace was waiting until all family members were able to say a final goodbye before announcing to the public. Her passing came unexpectedly as she had been working and recently photographed with the newly appointed Prime Minister, Liz Truss, two days before her death.
🤝 The Queen received Liz Truss at Balmoral Castle today.
Her Majesty asked her to form a new Administration. Ms. Truss accepted Her Majesty's offer and was appointed Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury. pic.twitter.com/klRwVvEOyc
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) September 6, 2022
Queen Elizabeth II is the longest reigning British monarch and the second longest reigning sovereign behind King Louis XIV of France. Her Majesty sat upon the throne for 70 years after being crowned in 1952 after the death of her father, King George IV. Her Majesty recently celebrated a platinum jubilee this year, commemorating her 70th year of service. Her Majesty leaves behind 4 children. One of which, King Charles III, ascended to the throne this weekend as Queen Elizabeth’s first son and heir.
While we understand the legacy Her Majesty the Queen will leave behind, what has the public saying about her since her passing? To gather a better understanding of how this has been discussed online, we searched the terms “Queen Elizabeth” and “The Queen” using Sprinklr’s software. Since September 7th, the term “Queen Elizabeth” has been mentioned over 9.6 million times and “The Queen” 19.2 million times. Unsurprisingly, both terms saw a massive spike in mentions on the 8th of September. With “Queen Elizabeth” increasing from 7,345 mentions on the 7th of September to 4,746,317 mentions on the 8th of September. And “The Queen” increasing from 76,773 to 8,357,261.
Who is talking about Her Majesty? It seems that those participating tend to be males in the United States, shortly followed by those in the United Kingdom. Conversations are overwhelmingly taking places on Twitter. Top influencers on this platform are major news outlets such as, BBC News, CNN, TIME, The Associated Press, and The New York Times. Other influential voices on this topic include other political leaders such as, President Joseph Biden and Liz Truss; as well as political commentators such as, Larry Madowo of CNN, Peter Baker of MSNBC, and Philip Lewis of Huffington Post.
Both mentions of “Queen Elizabeth” and the “The Queen” were overall neutral. But leaned more negative when comparing positive and negative sentiments. With 63% of the mentions around “The Queen” being negative and 66% of mentions being negative when searching “Queen Elizabeth.” While at first this may seem higher than normal, the negative sentiments tend to be coming from words such as “death’ or ‘mourning’. To get a closer look at these conversations, we have attached a word cloud which shows the top terms associated with this search.
Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II will be buried on Monday, September 19th in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle after a ceremony at Westminster Abbey. The funeral will be broadcasted for public viewing in the United States on television networks such as ABC, CNN, and Fox News. As always, The Social Media Listening Center will continue to follow this historic event and update you.
