Analysis of war data-driven stories-A comparative study between Arabian and foreign websites

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Faculty of Mass Communication-Ahram Canadian University, Visual Communication Department

Abstract

The study aimed to observe, analyze, and understand data-driven war and conflict stories from a sample of Arab and international websites, focusing on the coverage of the "Gaza War" and the "Sudanese Armed Conflict" between October 2023 and August 2024. The researcher analyzed 60 data-driven stories across platforms such as Masrawy, Al-Masry Al-Youm, Al-Manassa, ARIJ, The Guardian, BBC, CNN, The Washington Post, Financial Times, and The New York Times, besides making In-depth interviews with investigative journalists to understand the challenges they faced during making data-driven stories. The study highlighted the methodology of making wars and conflicts data-driven stories, the main sources, storytelling types, core topics, and types of multimedia used to depict war events. The study concludes that there are 17 topics were identified, with varying representation across Arab and international outlets. Arab websites excelled in covering topics like systematic targeting of journalists with 20% vs. 6.7% in international sites, and the destruction of Media organizations with 10% in international platforms, however, focused more on satellite imagery and video content highlighting the destruction in Gaza with 26.7% vs. 10% in Arab sites, revealing a heavier reliance on visual storytelling with 56.7% on international sites vs. 13.3% on Arab sites.

Keywords

Main Subjects


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