Prior Posts

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Top Hashtags

The top hashtags are identified by their high occurrence throughout the various Twitter posts that were collected. The date when a post was shared is vital for the process of grouping the data, whereby posts are grouped on a weekly basis. For each week, the most frequent hashtags are identified for analysis to pick the top 10 hashtags shared for each particular week and compare these overtime.

A view of basic statistical analysis details

The table below shows statistical details such as count, unique, top, and frequency, this is to describe and summarise the entire dataset per week. Count is the total number of data values (hashtags) in the dataset, unique denotes the number of unique hashtags in the dataset, top denotes the top hashtag in a particular week, and frequency is the number of times a hashtag occurs, which in this instance we look at the top hashtag. It is apparent from the data that #voteeff was the most popular hashtag throughout the weeks appearing 5 times at the top in the 9 weeks. Followed by #lge2021 (local government election 2021).

Top 10 hashtags per week from week 1 to week 9

The table below shows the top 10 commonly used hashtags per week starting from 01/09/2021 to 01/11/2021. These hashtags also share similarities with the top words and phrases visualised here. Especially when considering that hashtags also comprise of relevant phrases that are used in tweets.

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9
0 voteeff voteeff lge2021 lge2021 voteatm voteeff voteeff voteeff lge2021
1 lge2021 lge2021 voteeff voteeff voteeff lge2021 voteanc lge2021 voteeff
2 voetsekanc cyrilramaphosa registertovoteeff voteda voteanc voetsekanc lge2021 voteanc voteanc
3 ramaphosaqanda registertovoteeff voetsekanc voteanc ifpmanifestolaunch voteanc landandjobsmanje putsouthafricansfirst voetsekanc
4 africa familymeeting letsfixsouthafrica voetsekanc voetsekanc landandjobsmanje buildingbettercommunities voteda putsouthafricansfirst
5 cyrilramaphosa voetsekanc registertovoteda effmanifestolaunch lge2021 voteda voetsekanc buildingbettercommunities voteactionsa
6 ramaphosamustfall voteda voteanc damanifesto ancmanifesto putsouthafricansfirst voteda landandjobsmanje buildingbettercommunities
7 southafrica ipidarrestjmpdcriminals cyrilramaphosa anclge2021 cyrilramaphosa eff anclge2021 voetsekanc voteda
8 concourt letsfixsouthafrica voteda effmanifestolaunch2021 voteifp phoenixmassacre eff voteifp landandjobsmanje
9 anc drmphoformayor registertovote letsfixsouthafrica voteda capetownisawesome putsouthafricansfirst eff anclge2021

Top 30 hashtags throughout the period

In the graph below the top 30 hashtags are portrayed. These are calculated for the whole period from 01/09/2021 to 01/11/2021 instead of weekly. The total count of each hashtag is also included, you can view it by hovering on the graph. Looking at the top 3 hashtags you can see that #voteeff appeared 18267 times followed by #lge2021 with 16332 times then #voteanc with 12829 times, in the Twitter posts.

Resources and References

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