The News in New Media

The Kansas City Chiefs will be facing off against the San Francisco 49ers in the 58th Annual Super Bowl. This year’s game will be broadcast live from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and is set to take place on Sunday, February 11th, 2024 at 6:30 PM. To get to the Super Bowl, the San Francisco 49ers took on the Detroit Lions, winning 34-31 and the Kansas City Chiefs took on the Baltimore Ravens, winning 17-10 to earn their respective places in the Super Bowl. Since the announcement of both teams that would be playing in the Super Bowl, social media conversations have taken off in anticipation. Ranging in conversations about the official Super Bowl program cover, jersey color choices of each team, and player execution throughout the game. 

Among the most frequently discussed names within the conversations are: Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift, Patrick Mahomes, Brock Purdy, and Usher. 

Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift have been heavily discussed throughout the Chief’s season, receiving criticism for their new relationship affecting Kelce’s performance on the field. This appears to remain true for the Super Bowl

Further driving more conversations, each quarterback on the two teams, Brock Purdy and Patrick Mahomes, have also produced a good amount of controversy and support about their individual performances. 

Usher will be headlining the 59th Super Bowl half-time show. Interestingly, one of the most commonly discussed topics of conversation surrounding the Super Bowl, the half-time show, has not produced a lot of conversation this year. However, following in suit with past years, Super Bowl commercials that are shown throughout the game are generating a lot of conversation. In particular, Paramount + has been a key area that fans have hosted conversations in. 

Since both teams were determined to be playing on Jan 28th, the topic has had a total of 1.86 million mentions and a reach of 35.75 billion. The top amount of mentions were concentrated to January 28th with 707,963 mentions. The social platforms most frequently used to facilitate conversation about the teams and their players are X, news outlets, Reddit, and TV broadcasts.

As the Super Bowl draws near, it is expected millions will be gathered around to see the game, the commercials, the drama, and the half-time show. Last year alone, the Super Bowl topped records with over 115.1 million viewers tuned in to see some portion of the event, more than any other Super Bowl in the past. Sunday night football can’t come soon enough this weekend.

Author: Alexis Merriman

The F1 world completely shifted on Thursday. The news of Lewis Hamilton leaving Mercedes to join Ferrari for the 2025 Formula season got the sports industry agog. Ferrari stated on Thursday evening that seven-time world champion Hamilton will join the team on a multi-year contract beginning next season. Reports claim he will earn over $100 million annually at Ferrari, making him the highest-paid F1 driver ever.

The seven-time world champion is the most successful driver in Formula One history, with 103 victories and 104 pole positions. Michael Schumacher is the only other driver who has won seven world titles. Hamilton joined Mercedes from McLaren in 2013 and has won six world championships. He has not won a race since December 2021.

According to reports, Hamilton’s decision to join Ferrari follows several years of discontent with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team. The British driver used a release option in his contract last year, indicating he was looking for a fresh challenge.

To all Formula One fans, you can agree that no one anticipated this coming, particularly Hamilton’s move to a rival team, which is already changing the driver landscape of F1. However, this is not the first time we’ve seen prominent stars in sports join rival teams.

Within twenty-four hours after the statement was published, I analyzed social media to gauge fans’ reactions about this significant shift using the SMLC’s Sprinklr. The analysis showed that the conversations generated over 113,225 mentions and reached over 799 million, a positive sentiment score of 73.49%, while negative had 26.51%.

Aside from the positive reactions to the conversations, one distinct thing was the sudden rise of Ferrari’s shares in the stock market. It gained $43.53, or 13%, in New York trading on Thursday to close at $389.45 a share, adding over $7 billion to its market cap. Despite some fans being happy about the move and expressing their loyalty to Hamilton irrespective of which team he joins, some saw this as a betrayal.

Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari has undeniably altered the course of Formula 1, leaving a lasting impact on the sport’s landscape. As fans come to terms with this unexpected shift, the 2025 season promises to be one of the most eagerly anticipated and closely watched in recent memory. Following this development, the next question for Mercedes is who will replace Hamilton.

Author: Bowale Odukale

At 10:46 am on January 29^th the official Elmo X account made a post saying, “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” 

It was an innocent inquiry from arguably the most iconic character from Sesame Street that was likely conceived to play to audiences’ nostalgia in a similar vein as the post from Steve from Blue’s Clues did a few years back, but the responses were not the same.

The one singular post from Elmo received over 131 million views, 77 thousand likes, 31 thousand quotes, 6 thousand reposts, and 10 thousand bookmarks. This post blew up. Looking deeper at the analytics, since Elmo asked the users of X how they were doing “Elmo” was mentioned across X over 300 thousand times, and these posts reach almost 2 billion users. The sentiments of the discussion around Elmo are almost exactly 25% positive to 75% negative. The top themes of the discussion include terms such as “Great Elmo,” “Good,” “Bad,” and “F**king limit.” This leaves one to wonder what exactly users were saying to or about Elmo. Many users took to quoting the original post to “tell Elmo” how they were doing.

While some were doing what has been referred to as “trauma dumping,” which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as “the act of telling another person or other people in a detailed way about problems and emotional pain that you have experienced, expecting them to give you sympathy and comfort, when they may not be able or willing to do this,” others took the opportunity to hope onto a viral joke. 

One hashtag that began circulating along with the Elmo discourse was #emotionalwellbeing which was popularized by a follow up post from the Elmo account posted on the afternoon of the 30^th. The account wrote, “Wow! Elmo is glad he asked! Elmo learned that it is important to ask a friend how they are doing. Elmo will check in again soon, friends!  Elmo loves you.❤️ #EmotionalWellBeing.” 

Further, the official Sesame Street X account quoted this post providing some mental health resources saying, “Mental health is health! For #EmotionalWellBeing resources and more, visit @SesameWorkshop: Sesame.org/MentalHealth.”

It is also important to note that while this discourse has been taking place with users from around the world, it was primarily centered with users from the United States with over 130 thousand mentions of Elmo here alone. Some famous individuals and accounts also hopped into the discussion such as United States president Joe Biden, the government organization NASA, and singer-songwriter T-Pain.

In the end, all jokes aside, it is important to remember that mental health is an important part of our wellbeing. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, consider the following resources:

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s free 24-hour helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)

Mental Health America’s website

Mental Health First Aid’s website

Author: Ben Katarzynski

On May 16, 1929, the first Academy Awards were hosted honoring film released August 1, 1927 through August 1, 1928. Since then, the Academy Awards (commonly known as the Oscars) have been a longstanding tradition and highly anticipated event in the cinema industry. Created to highlight some of the best achievements made in the art of film, recipients of the award receive golden statuettes signifying their success. In preparing for the 96th Academy Awards on March 10th, 2024, we look at several nominees that have been highlighted by the Academy and have generated several hot topic conversations on social media. 

Overall, since their release on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024, conversations regarding the release of nominations from the Academy have 1.14 million mentions and a reach of 12.59 billion. X, new sources, Reddit and Instagram are the social platforms most used in these conversations. Conversations peaked on January 23rd with the announcement of the nominees at 8:30 AM with 705,539 mentions. 

One of the biggest topics of conversation was surrounding the nomination of the Barbie movie and its actors. The movie was released in July of 2023 and deemed a re-make of an iconic movie that pushes cultural norms and is supportive of feminism. The lead actors were Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera and Will Ferrell. Collectively, Barbie was nominated for eight Oscars, but the controversy came with the actors who did received a nomination. Ryan Gosling was nominated for Best Actor and America Ferrera was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Conversations regarding Margot Robbie not receiving a nomination was collectively one of the main complaints with an overall negative sentiment on social platforms. 

Oppenheimer was another film that was a topic of conversation among the announcements of Oscar nominations. The movie, which focuses on the race to create the first atomic bomb surrounding World War II, received the most nominations with a grand total of thirteen. When the film hit theaters, it consistently topped records. It overcame another movie’s seven year long streak in the box office, achieving a gross total of nearly $1 billion. 

Two other topics of conversation among social media users were regarding promotion of feminism, while “throwing other women under the bus”. Lily Gladstone, was the first Native American Woman to be nominated for the best actress award and Justine Triet was the only female director nominated this year for the Anatomy of a Fall. The big controversy came in that not all conversations were based on the two women’s success in being nominated. Instead, social media conversations focused on how it was disappointing that most people were taking away from her opportunity to highlight that Margot Robbie was not nominated. 

Given the high volume of conversation and controversy regarding the announcement of the nominees, many people are anxiously awaiting the announcement of winners when the 96th Annual Academy Awards take place on March 10th, 2024.

Author: Lexi Merriman 

It is no longer news that former President Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire primary, bringing him closer to being the Republican presidential nominee. Donald Trump won the primaries with 54.5% (169,620 votes), while Nikki Haley received 43.3% (134,829 votes).

According to reports, Donald Trump is the first non-incumbent Republican contender in modern history to win the Iowa and New Hampshire GOP primaries. With the #NewHamphirePrimary generating a lot of online talk, the SMLC team took a quick look at the social media conversations around the GOP New Hampshire primary using Spinklr during and after the event over 24 hours. Here are a few fascinating facts.

A review of the conversations revealed over 64,558 mentions and a reach of more than 1.01 billion, with most of the conversation on the X platform. In addition, the study revealed a sentiment score with positive mentions at 61.6% and negative mentions at 38.3%. Examining the most active age gap, millennials from 18 to 35 were the most active, with over 11.2k mentions, followed by the middle-aged group, ages 35-60, with over 6.28k mentions.

Nevertheless, upon a thorough examination of the sentiment scores, it became evident that a significant number of social media users, particularly within the specified active age group, expressed joy over former President Donald Trump’s victory in the #NewHampshirePrimaries election, with a prevailing mixed theme centered on sharing personal happiness and taking our country back and culture. Here are some of the tweets featuring positive mentions.

To provide a well-rounded perspective, let’s explore some critical tweets to gain insights into users’ perspectives and responses to the #NewHampshirePrimary. According to Sprinklr, the most negative mentions stemmed from users’ perceptions expressing discontent with how Democrats played a pivotal role in supporting Nikki Haley’s candidacy. Here are a few examples of these tweets.

Despite these user chats, a report from USAToday, claims that New Hampshire has a closed primary, which means that voters can only vote in a political primary if they are registered members of that party or undeclared. Someone registered as a Democrat cannot vote in the GOP primary because the deadline for changing party affiliation was in October 2023.

Although the #NewHampshirePrimary has come to an end, emerging conversations around former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to suspend her campaign are in top gear; Nikki Haley has made it bold to state that the race was “far from over” as she pledged to stay in it.  The upcoming GOP Presidential primaries are scheduled in Nevada and the Virgin Islands. Nevertheless, both candidates are currently focusing on a clash in the South Carolina primary.

Author: Bowale Odukale

Have you ever wanted to watch a bunch of reality television stars live together in a castle in the Scottish Highlands while the secretly murder one another? Maybe you have and maybe you haven’t, but that is exactly what The Traitors season two is delivering this year. Premiering on January 12^th, the Whodunit style show hosted by Alan Cumming, pits reality stars from shows such as Survivor, Big Brother, The Real Housewives, Love Island and more against one another as they secretly “murder” and interrogate each other in hopes of winning a prize pot of potentially $250,000. From the season premier to today, the sentiment around the hashtag #TheTraitorsUS leans slightly negative (about 60%) which is reflective of the drama in the show and the fans picking the sides of their favorite contestants. This comes from the over twenty thousand uses of the hashtag on social media since January 12^th. And that is just in the United States alone.

After the success of season 1 last year which featured a mixed cast of reality television stars and everyday people, the cast of this season has upped the ante by including some of the biggest names in reality television from the last 20 years including Sandra Diaz-Twine, the first ever two time Survivor winner, Janelle Pierzina, the first four-time Big Brother contestant and recipient of VH1’s best reality star award, and Johnny Devenanzio “Bananas,” a seven time winner of MTV’s The Challenge. With a cast as star-studded as this, fans of reality television had an online frenzy when the cast was announced in September of last year.

As previously mentioned, this season of The Traitors premiered on January 12^th streaming exclusively on NBC’s streaming service Peacock. The first three episodes of the season were all released together to reveal which contestants were the traitors, those whose goals are to sabotage and ultimately “murder” the other contestants, and the faithfuls, those whose goals are to add money to the prize pot and find out and eliminate the traitors hiding amongst them. With over eleven thousand uses of the hashtag #TheTraitorsUS on Xduring the premier weekend, fans have taken to social media to support their favorite contestants and, just as frequently, attack the contestants they don’t like. Along with the previously mentioned contestants Sandra, Janelle, and Johnny Bananas, other notable contestants that have left impressions on the fans from the first three episodes include Survivor winner Parvati Shallow, Big Brother winner Dan Gheesling, The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Phaedra Parks, and RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Peppermint who were all frequently appearing names in the social media conversations. Here’s what some fans had to say:

After the premier day, the rest of the episodes are scheduled to be released one at a time on Thursday nights until the season finale. Sharon Tharp, a press member who specializes in reality television reporting, posted on X saying, “Not to be cryptic but episode 4 > first 3 episodes. #TheTraitorsUS.” This helped generate even more excitement and anticipation for the episode that aired on January 18^th.

Episode four, which was filled with arguably more drama than the first three episodes, was mentioned over ten thousand times on X, and the conversations surrounding the episode were twice as negative (about 66%) as they were positive ( about 33%). This is likely due to the fact that the episode ended in a fight between fan favorite contestants Phaedra and Parvati. 

Other conversation leaders include contestants Tamra Judge and Larsa Pippen, reality television podcaster Rob Cesternino, and Big Brother winner Andy Herren. As this show is a confluence of reality television worlds, it’s no surprise that those who are established in the reality television landscape are all coming together to speak on this all-star cast. Here’s some of what they’ve said:

With episode four ending on a cliffhanger, the online discussion of season two of The Traitors is surely going to heat up as new episodes come out each week. Overall, since the premier on the 12^th #TheTraitorsUS has been used over seventy thousand times across the world and reached almost one billion people, and that number is only going to climb as more contestants are murdered or ousted in the race to the grand prize which currently sits at $65,500. Can the traitors continue to off the faithfuls? Can the faithfuls find out and eliminate the traitors? Will the contestants be able to keep adding to the prize pot? Episode five premiers at 9:00 pm EST tomorrow, January 25^th only on Peacock.

Author: Ben Katarzynski

Over the years, the PGA Tour has held names such as Phil Mickelson, Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods. Upheld as the gold standard within the sport of professional golfing, reviews and ratings for the PGA Tour are at an all time high. CBS reported an average of 2.59 million viewers for PGA Tour events in 2023 which was a 4% increase YoY, according to Josh Sim with SportsPro Media. Recently, the organization has found itself a part of one of the most controversial topics nationwide as news of a merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf came to light in June of 2023.

Since 1968, the PGA Tour has held as the dominant league and organization for professional golf. The idea of competing golf leagues arose in 2019 with the announcement of the Premier Golf League (PGL) which had its inaugural launch in the 2023 season. An additional competing organization, LIV Golf, was founded in 2021 and held its inaugural season in 2022. LIV Golf has been known to persuade players to leave the PGA Tour and join their new organization that is primarily funded by the Saudi Arabia government’s sovereign wealth fund: the Public Investment Fund (PFI). With the creation of these alternate organizations, players became trading pawns as they were encouraged to change alliances and at times be banned from leagues, events, and tournaments. Prior to June 2023, many antitrust claims/lawsuits had been filed between PGA Tour and LIV Golf and additionally, letters of disapproval were sent from PGL to both PGA Tour and LIV Golf.

Social Media conversations surrounding this new merger have been controversial for many different reasons. Collectively, the topic had over 235.31K mentions and an overall negative sentiment among users. The conversation on the topic peaked on June 6th, with the announcement of an agreement between PGA Tour and LIV Golf which would combine the two organizations’ commercial businesses and rights into a new for-profit entity. 

Conversations entailed criticism for the PGA Tour/ Commissioner, Jay Monahan, for the insensitivity of the merger to the 9/11 community, commentary on former President Donald Trump’s predictions on the merger, and overall thoughts on the deal.

In light of the news of a merger that would drastically change golf’s current governance structure, several other implications came about. The merger announcement implied all prior litigation between the two organizations would end, player recruitment would end, the PIF would be making capital investments in the new for-profit entity, and new (unequal) governance structures would take place for the board of directors. The announcement resulted in bipartisan scrutiny among legislators as they brought up Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights and antitrust issues that would emerge if it came to fruition. Players also retaliated upon hearing of the deal and now argue for more power in the new entity. A senate subcommittee hearing was held on July 11th, 2023 regarding the matter. 

Most recently, PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan has admitted miscalculations in the announcement and taken responsibility for the misinformation and issues with the rollout of the merger to LIV Golf. However, he stated “But ultimately the move that we made is the right move for the PGA Tour and I firmly believe that. As we go forward, time will bear that out. It was the right move”. 

According to Bloomberg News, the merger deal will be delayed past its anticipated deadline of December 31st, 2023. Many publics remain eager to see the implications of the new entity, should it come to pass. 

Author: Lexi Merriman