Social media interest in Pistorius proceedings wanes

This week, the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfentein overturned Oscar Pistorius’ culpable homicide conviction, replacing it with one of murder. If you’re keep abreast of the news, you’re probably aware of that. And if you’re on social media, you probably also got the sense that the appeals process got nowhere near as much attention as the former athlete’s original trial and bail hearing.

That sense would be 100% correct too. According monitoring data from Social Studio, analysed by customer engagement agency 25AM, there were 380 000 mentions of Oscar Pistorius in social media and mainstream media from 3 September 2015 to 3 December 2015. By contrast, Social Studio recorded nearly 1.3-million mentions in social media and mainstream media in the three months leading up to the 13 October 2014 judgement.

One possible reason for this is that there was a lot more courtroom drama during the trial, with social media acting as a means for people to feel like they were part of that drama. Immediately prior to the appeal, there was less of a build-up — and hence less media coverage — for the judgment in appeal case, which may explain why there was far less social media discussion.

Read more: Barry Bateman and Oscar Pistorius: inside the Twitter explosion

According to the data, conversation a day prior to the judge’s ruling found that a large majority of Twitter users (95%) were in favour of conviction. Twitter discussions also spiked whenever there was a mainstream media coverage of the case. Much of the discussion, 25AM says, centred on justice for Reeva and her family.

It’s also important to note that South Africans’ minds were most likely elsewhere during the appeals protest, with the #FeesMustFall movement taking precedence at some points. It shouldn’t be all that surprising then that the bulk of conversation around the appeal came from overseas.

Read more: The Oscar Pistorius hearing by the social media numbers

Germany and the US accounted for a large portion of the social media chatter and mainstream news coverage. News24 and IOL are the only South African news sources among the top 10 mainstream news sites to post articles about Oscar Pistorius in the run-up to the judgment.

After the judgment was announced on 3 December, however, South Africa accounted for a higher volume of conversation than any other region.

That’s largely down to the fact that on-the-scene South African reporters such as Mandy Wiener, Barry Bateman, and EWN Updates were delivering up-to-the-second updates on the proceedings.