By Willie Summers
IRAN GOOGLE SEARCHES INCREASE AMIDST CHAOS
President Donald Trump has dominated the web in Google searches within the U.S. since his candidacy announcement in 2015. Iran has never passed the amount of searches that Trump has received until recently.
According to an analysis of search data within Google Trends in the U.S., Iran had an increased search presence over Trump in the U.S. starting on January 3, 2020. The presence remained higher than Trump’s until January 10.
The high search presence regarding Iran is connected to the killing of Iranian General Qasem Solemani which occurred on January 3. Qasem’s death was ordered by President Trump himself through airstrike. Although Trump ordered the strike, the effects of the assassination took place in Iran which lead to more searches of the country itself.
Another link to Iran’s week long popularity of searches is related to the plane crash of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 in which 176 were on board. The crash occurred on January 8 after taking off from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport in Iran. No one on-board survived the crash. The devastating tragedy lead to a large amount of searches of Iran due to the location in which the crash occurred.
The graph above shows the demographics of searches in the U.S. within the time that the events in Iran unfolded. Although Trump occupies a couple of states, the majority of searches coincide with Iran. It can be concluded from this graph that although Trump maintained some presence through searches due to his relation in the events that occurred in Iran, the country itself maintained a larger search presence across the U.S.
JOAQUIN PHOENIX WINS GOLDEN GLOBE, RICKY GERVAIS WINS MOST SEARCHES
The 77th Golden Globe Awards took place on January 5. Joaquin Phoenix won the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture Drama, but Ricky Gervais stole the show.
As documented in an analysis of search data within Google Trends in the U.S., Ricky Gervais had more Google searches than Joaquin Phoenix in the U.S. which began on January 5, and lasted until January 10.
Another analysis of search data within Google Trends shows the hosts (Andy Samberg, Sandra Oh) and winner of Best Actor (Rami Malek) of the 76th Golden Globe Awards which took place in the previous year.
It can be seen in the above analyses that the host isn’t always the most searched topic in relation to the Best Actor at the Golden Globes.
The increase in searches for this years Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais can be connected directly to his opening monologue speech in which he roasted almost all of Hollywood. Due to the controversy and hilarity surrounding Gervais’s speech, he became a top hit for searches. The monologue was uploaded to Youtube shortly after, and today the video has over 14 million views.
Joaquin Phoenix who won Best Actor for his role as Arthur Fleck in Joker, did not receive the amount of popularity that Gervais got in searches. However, Joaquin did regain his popularity on January 10 which can be related to his arrest at James Fonda’s climate change protest. Since then, Joaquin has remained slightly above Gervais in the total amount of Google searches in the U.S.
The graph above shows that although Joaquin has been a bit higher in searches recently, Gervais remains the most searched topic between the two throughout the entire U.S. in the last 30 days. The opening monologue that he delivered is shown to be more popular than any other events that surrounded Joaquin during the 77th Golden Globes.
Willie Summers Digital Journalism 