SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's dueling defamation lawsuits in a Virginia court have become a social media spectacle in no small part because of the presence of an older medium.
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Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Penney Azcarate allowed Court TV in April to provide two pool camera feeds in the courtroom for the trial, which ended Wednesday with a jury awarding Depp $10 million in a libel lawsuit against Heard and her $2 million in a counterclaim against him.
That decision enabled footage to be broadcast widely – live on television and online – and later shared in tweets, TikTok posts, YouTube videos and memes across a number of social media platforms that domestic violence advocates, experts and survivors fear could mean victims are less likely to speak out about their experiences.
It also gave the trial a made-for-TV moment, as multiple networks carried live the verdict’s reading on Wednesday when a jury ruled that Heard knowingly defamed Depp with three statements in a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post and that Depp's lawyer defamed her when he called her allegations an elaborate hoax.
"Well, it was a television moment, that's for sure," Bob Thompson, Director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, told KCBS Radio’s Margie Shafer in an interview on Wednesday afternoon after the jury reached its verdicts.
"There was a countdown and a drum roll, and everyone was covering it," he added.
Celebrity trials have long been cultural phenomena in the U.S., well before around-the-clock televised coverage of O.J. Simpson's trial and acquittal in the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
Widespread internet adoption was in its infancy then, whereas a number of social media platforms are now entrenched cultural forces, shaping coverage of Depp and Heard.
Some of those platforms’ algorithms have incentivized accounts to weigh in – and, as was the case on TikTok and YouTube, with a distinctly pro-Depp bent – as they try to maximize engagement and amplify their content. Vice News reported that the Daily Wire, a conservative news outlet that is among the top publishers on Facebook, spent tens of thousands of dollars promoting anti-Heard videos on the platform and Instagram.
“Of course we'd be interested in it,” Thompson said. “Messy, ugly things about famous people we have seen in movies and all the rest is, let's face it, interesting. Maybe that interest doesn't reflect the most noble part of the human spirit, but it was an interesting trial."
Thompson noted that cable news powerhouse CNN shifted to continuing coverage of last week's shooting at a Uvalde, Texas elementary school within 11 minutes of the verdict’s reading, showing "how fast this whole cycle turns around."
But given the interest in Depp and Heard's lawsuits, as well as the possibility of additional legal action, Thompson said he doesn't expect Wednesday's verdict to be the last Americans hear of the proceedings.
"There's going to be, I'm sure, appeals and lots of other conversations about this," he said.
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