South Africa’s social media was surprisingly positive last week

The good feels are back in South Africa’s social and news media spheres according to stats from analytics firm ROI Africa.

It suggests that South Africa had just enjoyed one of its more positive weeks in recent memory.

The firm’s data — which encompassed the past week ending 18 February — suggests that Twitter went from its usually extremely nihilistic self to Cloud Cuckoo Land in a matter of hours.

Jacob Zuma’s resignation last Wednesday, together with Cyril Ramaphosa’s rise contributed to more than 55% of local online news, ROIAfrica stated.

“On the day of #Zuma’s resignation, 80% of our reporting and social media conversation focussed on the event,” explained ROI Africa’s MD Tonya Khoury.

“It takes approximately 66 000 unique articles in news media to make the @ROiAfrica charts and #ZumaResigns managed to make more press than #Oxfam and the #SuperBowl combined.”

Khoury also suggested that the number of Zuma-centric articles trounced both North Korea and Valentine’s Day news worldwide.

On social media, positivity also trended across the nation.

“#ZumaMustFall has been on the charts for almost three years and within seconds the # changed to #ZumaHasFallen / #ZumaResigns / #ZumaisGone,” Khoury continued.

“The positive sentiment about South Africa has never been this high in the history of the @ROiAfrica charts, as a nation is filled with hope.”

Topics like State Capture and the Guptas remained prominent in South Africa’s news media, but Day Zero conversation seemingly thinned in the wake of SONA 2018, the strengthening rand and the Gupta arrests.

Feature image: Etereuti via Pixabay (CC0)