Sunday 11 September 2022 · below the Index · spike
Iran seizes Greek tankers in Aegean
Iran released the crew of two Greek-flagged tankers that had been seized, amid escalating tensions in the Aegean Sea. The incident occurred during a period of heightened geopolitical friction in the region.
Peak 59.9 on Monday 12 September 2022. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Media-led, both over the window and on the peak day. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 54% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Saturday 3 September 2022.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Readers here means readers of the Wikipedia article on each vessel type — the same source as the Research signal, not news coverage — so an incident can dominate the news without moving this panel. Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: geopolitical pawn. Trade press was 1% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 68% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 68% negative overall; 3% strongly so.
Each article is scored on a five-step scale from strongly negative to strongly positive; the bar is the share of coverage at each step.
Sample of the headlines
- Iran to release crew of two seized Greek tankers -Greek seafarers uniongulf-times.com · 2022-09-12
- Iran to release crew of two seized Greek tankers – Greek seafarers unionkfgo.com · 2022-09-12
- Iran to release crew of two seized Greek tankers - Greek seafarers unionjpost.com · 2022-09-12
- Iran to release crew of two seized Greek tankers — Greek seafarers uniontimeslive.co.za · 2022-09-12
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- social = X only before Bluesky (2024-07-01); not comparable with today's series
- Registered in a single underlying series only — one vessel-type article, news term or social query — and never moved the Index itself.
- The coverage panels count only articles matched to this incident specifically.
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Iran seizes Greek tankers in Aegean, peak 59.9 on 12 September 2022. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2022-iran-seizes-greek-tankers-in-aegean/