Ahead of 2020’s Oscars, there was a resurgence of the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, but in the wake of the awards show, there were more stories about other social issues surrounding the nominations and final winners.
When we break out engagements to content about the Oscars by platform, we can see what does well in different mediums. Instagram was all about the fashion of the evening. There were a lot of photos of the red carpet and celebrities have even started showing how much effort goes into getting ready for the event, with high engagement reflected on the very visual platform. Here were some of the top brands called out during the red carpet walk.
Twitter was up-to-the-minute updates and commentary surrounding the winners, and Facebook was a mix of both. More than what worked for each social platform though, there was a significant amount of coverage following the social issues brought up by fashion, speeches and skits throughout the night.
When looking at the broader coverage of the Oscars, generally, there was more focus on the social issues and conversations surrounding them than the winners themselves.
There was a lot of attention on “Hair Love” for its win for best animated short film. Relatedly, DeAndre Arnold, the Texas high school student who was banned from prom and graduation unless he cut his locs also received a lot of attention. Arnold and his mother were able to attend the Oscars with the director of “Hair Love” Matthew A. Cherry. The coverage got a lot of love on social.
The Daily Mail’s general coverage of the event landed the top spot by way of engagements and Joaquin Phoenix’s acceptance speech for his Best Actor win made the rounds on social for his focus on animal cruelty.
Parasite’s historic best picture win was also heavily circulated on the web, with many people who had called for more diverse nominations reveling in the fact that a foreign language film did actually win for the first time.
The top publishers for Oscars content this year varied, with a few typical mainstream publishers making the top ten.
It’s interesting to note how many articles each publication dedicated to their Oscars coverage, which contributed to their final engagement numbers. NBC had 661 articles that pushed it to the number three spot, while shadowandact.com only published nine articles and those articles generated nearly 600k engagements for the site.
All things considered, while the lead up to the Academy Awards was fraught with calling out its lack of diversity, the post-show coverage was generally positive, with more of a focus on those that were using their platforms to raise the oft unheard voices in the industry.
If you’d like to monitor real-time coverage similar to this for yourself, take a look at NewsWhip Spike.
