After years of public attention, Chris Dawson was yesterday convicted of the murder of his wife Lynette in 1982. Social media quickly delivered it’s verdict and thoughts on the ruling.
Though Lynette’s body has never been found, and Dawson has maintained his innocence, the judge-only trial (as requested by Dawson and granted by the court) delivered its verdict in line with that of public opinion.
Backed by data from Meltwater, public opinion was to find Dawson guilty, with 18-24s leading the charge in the social media deliberation and verdict.
The Australian’s popular true crime podcast The Teacher’s Pet, published in 2018 created immense publicity of the case, with the podcast having been listened to tens of millions of times before it was pulled from streaming platforms before the trial. As the case was reopened in large part due to the overwhelming attention it received on social media, Meltwater has today released data examining social media’s reaction to the verdict.
Meltwater recorded 9.2k social media posts regarding the trial throughout the five-hour verdict delivery, an increase of 1282% from the Monday preceding the verdict delivery.
Garnering the most engagement was 18-24s, with women as a majority of the demographic, measuring at 53%. Showcasing the large interest of Gen Z and millennials in the case across social media, Meltwater comprised a graph of the most used emojis when posting about the case, with the top emoji “prayer hands”.
Meltwater data shows the top emojis used in posts about Chris Dawson.
Meltwater is “the world’s first online media monitoring company”, and was one of the first global companies to offer social media analytics to clients. Having completed eight acquisitions over the last five years, Meltwater is a global company that dissects social media insights and delivers it to clients in digestible, actionable data.
With an appeal of the verdict suggested by Dawson’s lawyer Greg Walsh, further social media scrutiny of the case can be expected.