The News in New Media

Britney Spears’ Father Suspended From Conservatorship

Posted on by kep3

The legal controversy surrounding the prolific pop icon Britney Spears has been trending in the news for months. Since 2008, Britney Spears has been living under a restrictive conservatorship allowing her father, Jamie Spears, to control her financial, medical, and personal affairs. Her father was initially granted conservatorship over his daughter due to her past struggle with mental health issues. However, Spears has made it clear to the court and to the public that she wants the conservatorship to end.

In June of 2021, Spears addressed her conservatorship in a court hearing and described her father’s behavior as abusive. Spears’ attorney, Mathew Rosengart, has been fighting for her conservatorship to be terminated completely.

“Mr. Spears has crossed unfathomable lines. While they are not evidence, the allegations warrant serious investigation, certainly by Ms. Spears as, among other things, California is a ‘two-party’ consent state” said Rosengart in a court filing.

On Sept. 29, Judge Brenda J. Penny decided to suspend Spears’ father as conservator of her estate. This is a huge win for Spears and her legal team, and has resulted in the well-known hashtag #freebritney to trend once again.

What has the conversation been like on social media? At the Social Media Listening Center, we used a search for keywords “#freebritney” and “Jamie Spears” and “conservatorship.” The term “Britney Spears” alone has been widely used and is not specific enough to include in the search. While this search may not be fully extensive, it provides a glimpse into the online conversation.

On Sept. 29 when the news was announced, the search found 376,397 mentions discussing the topic. The overall sentiment of this search was 63.25% positive and 36.25% negative. However, it is difficult to gauge audience sentiment from sentiment analysis alone when discussing serious issues such as legal abuse. To get a better look at the conversation and the sentiment surrounding this topic, we paid close attention to the word cloud capturing the most common words and phrases associated with this search:

A word cloud showing the top keywords and phrases in this conversation.
To gain even further understanding of the sentiment surrounding this news, we looked at the most commonly used hashtags related to this search. Unsurprisingly, #freebritney was at the top and had been used 317,000+ times in the span of 24 hours. Other top hashtags included #britneyspears, #britneyvsspears, and #squidgames. The last hashtag refers to a South Korean fictional Netflix drama in which contestants play children’s games to win large prizes, but losers are killed. Many Twitter users have posted memes about Spears’ father competing in a real-life version of this game. When searching the keyword “#freebritney,” we found that some of the top themes of discussion the day the news was announced were “Free Britney Movement,” “Good,” and “Team.”
Who is engaging in this conversation? Unsurprisingly, the majority of mentions surrounding this topic are from female Twitter users in the 18-35 age demographic located in the United States. However, Twitter users from Brazil are also playing a major role in the conversation. The top influencers on Twitter include prominent news outlets such as Forbes, TIME, and ABC News, and others. Other celebrities, including Cher and Paris Hilton, have been active voices in the conversation as well.

The volume trend of this conversation has steadily declined since the news was announced. However, this conversation is not over just yet. John Zabel, a certified public accountant, will be the temporary conservator of Spears’ estate until the next court hearing. We’ll have to wait and see what happens next with this litigation. In the meantime, we’ll continue to monitor this topic and others from the Social Media Listening Center.

Author: Kendall Phillips

Posted in Tracking News via Social Media Analytics

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