Johannesburg - As Wednesday marked the third day of murder accused Oscar Pistorius taking to the stand in the High Court in Pretoria, his trial continued to dominate the news headlines.
Monitoring group Data Driven Insight (DDI) said in the 24 hours ending at 4pm on Wednesday, the trial received 54.14 percent of the news coverage in South Africa.
This exceeded coverage about the upcoming national elections drew, the saga around President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla homestead, and Shrien Dewani's murder trial.
Wednesday was the first day of Pistorius being grilled in cross-examination by prosecutor Gerrie Nel.
The DDI said Pistorius spent most of his testimony (21.27
percent) talking about the bathroom door of his house.
This was the door through which he fired four gunshots, killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day last year. He claimed to have mistaken her for an intruder.
He spent 13.38 percent of the time crying.
Globally, the United States gave the trial the most publicity, followed by Australia, and the United Kingdom.
In social media worldwide, the word “guilty” was used more often than the word “innocent” in relation to the trial.
The data was compiled from 6.2 million social media platforms which included blogs, forums, social networks and commentary.
It also included data from 60 000 global online newspapers, 2000 South African print publications and 66 radio and television stations.
Sapa