Media Coverage on Israel-Palestine Conflict

1 Introduction

This project examines how Reddit users engaged with the Israel-Hamas conflict during its escalation in October 2023. We chose this topic because of our interest in data journalism and the growing role of social media platforms like Reddit in shaping public discourse, particularly among younger audiences. While platforms like Facebook and Instagram remain popular, Reddit has become a hub for diverse conversations, making it a valuable resource for analyzing how people discuss and respond to real-world events.

We’re also interested in using data visualization to better understand modern conflicts. Social media plays a significant role in influencing political discourse and shaping geopolitics, and this project focuses on Reddit as a case study to explore its role in framing narratives around the Israel-Hamas conflict. The conflict, which escalated after a surprise attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, has received substantial media attention, sparking global debates and emotional responses. We wanted to go beyond surface-level observations and examine the data behind this discourse, uncovering any unique trends or insights.

To achieve this, we explored the following topics during the project:

1. Daily Trends in Submissions and Engagement: Analyzing how the volume of submissions and unique user activity fluctuated over time, especially around key events in the conflict.
2. Submissions by Subreddit: Comparing how different subreddits—such as Israel, Palestine, and worldnews—engaged with the conflict.
3. User Activity and Upvotes: Investigating correlations between user activity and total upvotes to identify patterns of engagement.
4. Controversiality of Discussions: Examining whether controversial topics generated more comments or upvotes, and how they compared to non-controversial posts.
5. Conversation Topics: Categorizing discussions into themes like “FreePalestine&Islamophobia,” “Zionism&Antisemitism,” and “Non-Related” to understand the focus of conversations.
6. Distribution of Comments and Upvotes: Exploring the distribution of comments and upvotes across posts to measure engagement levels.
7. Impact of Conflict Events on Activity: Mapping submission volumes and engagement spikes against major events in the conflict, such as the Hamas attack and temporary ceasefires.

Through these analyses, we aimed to make sense of how Reddit users engaged with the Israel-Hamas conflict and uncover the ways social media influences modern political and geopolitical discourse.