Tuesday 12 December 2023 · moved the Index · plateau
Carriers quit the Red Sea
In mid-December 2023 Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a series of missile and drone attacks on container ships and tankers transiting the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, hitting a Norwegian-flagged tanker and several cargo vessels. Within days Maersk, BP and other major operators suspended or rerouted traffic away from the region.
Peak 137.2 on Sunday 31 December 2023. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Over the whole window this ran Media-led; on the peak day itself it read Mixed. When the two differ, the fast signals (social, news) spiked and faded while the slow ones (search, research) carried the tail. Mixed means no single signal dominated — the attention was spread across search, research, news and social. 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
The #9 incident since 2020 by peak. Its peak day ranks #147 among all days — the higher days all belong to 9 bigger incidents.
How far it spread
Stayed in one vessel type — 1 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 3% 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 61% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 74% negative overall; 16% 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
- Red Sea crisis: Container ships and gas carriers bear brunt of Houthi disruptiontradewindsnews.com · 2023-12-28
- Houthis attack another container ship in Red Seatheolympian.com · 2023-12-27
- Yemen's Houthis Claim Responsibility for Red Sea Container Ship Attack, Attempted Drone Strike on Israelalgemeiner.com · 2023-12-27
- Houthis Claim Responsibility For Container Ship Attackmarinelink.com · 2023-12-27
- Another Container Ship Attacked In Red Sea As Houthis Act With Impunity – Infinite Unknowninfiniteunknown.net · 2023-12-27
- Will US get Drawn in? Houthis Support Gaza by Loosing 17 Drones on Red Sea Traffic, Hit Container Shipjuancole.com · 2023-12-27
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
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Carriers quit the Red Sea, peak 137.2 on 31 December 2023. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2023-carriers-quit-the-red-sea/