South Africans were politically preoccupied when it came to news and social media during the week local government elections took place, media monitoring company ROi Africa said on Sunday.
“Almost 90% of the social media [was] consumed with election talk,” said ROi Africa MD Tonya Khoury in a statement detailing media coverage patterns this week.
Just over two thirds of all news headlines were about political parties or the elections themselves.
“The enormity of the social conversation is what is surprising,” she said.
The Economic Freedom Fighters and its leader, Julius Malema, were both the news and social media’s biggest attention grabber. The breakaway party featured in 16% of all news coverage and 10,9% of all social media chatter.
President Jacob Zuma and the ANC attained 7,5% of all news coverage and a 3,8% slice of social media interest, while the Democratic Alliance and its leader, Mmusi Maimane, gathered 12,7% of all news interest, but attracted a mere 2,1% of social media attention.
When it came to international news, the Olympic Games, which launched in Rio this weekend, dominated nearly 60% of all news coverage.
While the local government elections might have felt like a landmark moment within the country, less than 1% of global headlines paid any attention to it — even mobile augmented reality game, Pokémon Go, was a bigger headline grabber, capturing a 3,8% of news interest around the world.