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Cape Town – Politics trumped sports in February as South Africans shifted online interest to the goings-on in the National Assembly chamber.
According to data from Google South Africa, President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) attracted the most attention from South Africans with 22 search terms, including “zupta must fall”, “sona 2016”, “state of the nation address 2016 time” and “eff”.
This year's Sona saw the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MPs chanting “Zupta” in reference to Zuma’s alleged alliance with the Gupta family.
READ: Zuma sails through Sona reply
And Google's trends tool showed that “sona” peaked on February 11 with a maximum 100 score. The term “zuma” scored 53 and “malema” in reference to EFF president Julius Malema scored 13.
Valentine’s Day - which attracted four search clusters - was also popular with South Africans, Google data showed.
At its search peak on February 14, “valentines” dominated search on Google with a score of 100, reducing “sona” to 3 and “zuma” to a score of 5.
South Africans were also interested in a mild earthquake felt in Durban with 10 search terms related to the event on February 6.
Local sports fans were still actively pursuing their interests and following favourite clubs in February.
Google data showed that matches between Arsenal and Barcelona, Chelsea PSG, and the US Super Bowl 50 all merited search clusters of their own.
See Google South Africa search trends on Sona here:
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