Guptas on our minds: state capture by the social media numbers

The past week has seen an increasing number of high-profile ANC members come forward to confirm that the Gupta family had influenced a number of cabinet positions. Despite threats and protestations from the wealthy family, the revelations haven’t stopped. It’s captured headline after headline and, by extension, the country’s social media imagination.

That much is obvious to anyone spending even five minutes on Twitter, but a look at the numbers shows just how suddenly South Africans have started to care about this issue.

According to data from social analytics company YouKnow, the volume of Gupta conversation from 1 Feb to 16 March increasied approximately 800% on preceding period. Interestingly, the total volume of conversation on the 17 March 2016 (22 978) was a little over half of the conversation taking place about the Budget Speech of the 24th February.

Things get even clearer when you compare this data directly. The key spikes are:
Yellow:

• day 20: Gupta Media is removed from EFF press briefing
• day 31: Van Rooyen’s two Gupta advisors are named
• day 58: Jonas (followed by others) goes on record that the Gupta’s offered him the Minister of Finance position.

Looking specifically at 16 March 2016, volumes of conversation increased dramatically over the course of the day with a strong correlation between the release of press regarding the Guptas.

While volumes increased significantly a significant portion was “information sharing” and there wasn’t the same depth of feeling that was seen with the “MustFall” movements. However, negativity did significantly increase off the back of the new information.

As with most national political issues, most of the conversation came from Gauteng, followed by the Western Cape:

Some of the key themes of conversation include broad conversation regarding “State Capture”, Mentor (referring to Vytjie Mentor, the former ANC MP who issued a series of revelations on Facebook this week) and Jonas (in reference to deputy finance minister Mcebesi Jonas, who this week admitted that the Guptas had offered him the job of finance minister in late 2015). Interestingly, and as is typically South African, a number of comedic trends have appeared including “#replaceasongtitlewithgupta” and “#statecapturemovietitles”.