Former president Nelson Mandela's death has captured the imagination of people from around the world in the past week, with the topic becoming the biggest ever local conversation on social media platforms.
The word "Mandela" has remained on the Twitter trending list since his death was announced last week Thursday, while the hashtags #madiba, #nelsonmandela and #RIPMandela have been strong both locally and globally.
Although the former president's death remains a top topic among the Twitterati, news of his passing has been overshadowed somewhat by the unfortunate events around his memorial, such as the so-called "fake" signer, US president Barack Obama's selfie, and a photograph purporting to be of Mandela's dead body. Government was quick to declare the picture, which has gone viral, a fake.
While interest in Mandela's life and death came from all over the world, the bulk of searches via Google came from the continent. Madiba also dominated this week's search terms on Google, taking places three to nine in the week since his death, says Julie Taylor, head of communications and public affairs for Google sub-Saharan Africa.
Chart topper
Mike Wronski, MD of Fuseware, says Nelson Mandela has become the most talked about topic in SA by far since his death, and will also have been one of the most prominent global topics on social media to date.
BBC's breaking news account @BBCBreaking broke its record for the most retweets shortly after Mandela's death was announced. The tweet read: "Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president, dies aged 95", along with his picture. This was retweeted more than 77 000 times in the following hours.
Local broadcaster the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) saw the number of concurrent viewers across its YouTube streams peak at about 55 000, with about 85% watching the continuous stream, says spokesman Kaizer Kganyago.
A total of 58 400 views have been recorded for the event live stream, from the start of the service until 12 December, at 4pm, says Kganyago. He adds, by the end of Tuesday, about 600 000 people accessed its continuous stream, with more than 70 000 people watching for what YouTube describes as "a significant time", resulting in 264 482 hours watched.
The top countries in terms of viewership were SA, the US, the UK, Canada, Kenya, Netherlands, Italy, Australia, France and Botswana, says Kganyago.
However, the SABC's coverage of Mandela's memorial service on Tuesday was marred by a series of glitches - drawing fire from at least one major US cable news network. All other local and international broadcasters had to source their feed, at no charge, from the SABC, which was granted host broadcaster status for the event, as well as the upcoming funeral.
Communications regulator the Independent Communications Authority of SA indicated ahead of the memorial that it received strong international interest from broadcasters looking to secure radio frequency spectrum licences for the event, as well as the state funeral.
However, the SABC's coverage of the memorial drew the ire of CNN International commentators, who apologised to viewers for visual and audio problems during the live broadcast. The US cable news network also criticised the fact that dignitaries were not easy to identify, due to poor camerawork, bad angles and insufficient zooming.
Taylor says the SABC's live-streaming channel on YouTube proved very popular during the memorial service on Tuesday, and is continuing with coverage of the events surrounding Mandela's passing. The service has also compiled a list of the top 10 Mandela videos for 2013.
Unifying topic
Fuseware has been tracking the local Twitter conversation and found more than 278 000 mentions from 123 000 South Africans in the last few days alone, says Wronski. "It's the one topic that brings all South Africans together," he notes.
"Most of these conversations consist of people paying their respects and tributes to the political icon, but other trends include the booing of president [Jacob] Zuma, Obama's selfie picture, as well as the fake interpreter."
A stirring eulogy by Obama meant his name also featured heavily on Tuesday, but Zuma's hostile reception propelled #ZumaBoo to the summit of the list for most of the afternoon. In addition, the past few days have been dominated by reaction to the errant sign language interpretation during the service and #fakeinterpreter remains a constant presence.
Wronski says this is an indication that social media is used as a platform to open dialogue and people are free to say what they want. ITWeb's research on the most viewed YouTube videos around Mandela's death shows a tribute poem, by Dr Maya Angelou, was the most viewed video, with 867 168 hits.
This page was followed by a video of the alleged "fake" sign language interpreter, which hit 273 213, and then by the official announcement of Mandela's death. Wronski points out all eyes have been on SA, and the frenzy has gone global as Mandela was a "global icon".
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck says trending topics reflect what captures the public imagination. This does not always translate into media activity, but in this case the two were in sync in reflecting a global obsession with Mandela's passing, he adds.
Crescendo
Wronski says, before his death, Mandela's official Twitter account was the most retweeted account in SA. He expects the social activity to increase as his Sunday funeral draws closer.
"This is an iconic once-in-a-lifetime event... My prediction is that Madiba will trend until Christmas, after which people will switch into holiday mode."
Goldstuck says trending peaked during his memorial, but there will be another peak on Sunday. The official national memorial service this week brought the hashtag #MandelaMemorial to the forefront of local trending topics as all mourned the former statesman.
"The funeral itself closes the final chapter of Nelson Mandela's life. He has undoubtedly been the world's most revered individual during the era of the Internet and we can expect the event and his life to be observed and celebrated in social media like none before."
Goldstuck adds: "The announcement of his passing away did result in what we could call a social media frenzy, but the subsequent social media activity has been more a reflection of love and reverence than of a frenzied response to the mourning for Nelson Mandela."
(Additional reporting by Jon Tullett, Martin Czernowalow and Tyson Ngubeni.)
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