Saturday 27 January 2024 · below the Index · spike
Houthis attack oil tankers in Red Sea
Houthi rebels attacked oil tankers in the Red Sea in late January 2024, including strikes on British and Russian vessels. The attacks prompted widespread tanker diversions from the Suez Canal, causing freight rates to surge and disrupting global oil shipping routes.
Peak 136.6 on Saturday 27 January 2024. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Over the whole window this ran Mixed; on the peak day itself it read Social-led. 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
This was above 94% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Sunday 31 December 2023.
How far it spread
Spilled over — 2 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Gas carriers is a small readership base — normally about 372 readers a day, so a few hundred extra makes a large multiple.
Bulk carriers is a small readership base — normally about 452 readers a day, so a few hundred extra makes a large multiple.
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 2% 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 84% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 93% negative overall; 59% 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
- Oil tanker carrying Russian fuel on fire after Houthi strike in Red Seascmp.com · 2024-01-27
- Trafigura-operated tanker battling fire in Red Sea after Houthi missile attacklloydslist.com · 2024-01-27
- Oil tanker on fire in Red Sea after strike claimed by Houthisstandard.co.uk · 2024-01-26
- Yemen's Houthis Attack Russian Oil Tanker In Red Seacharter97.org · 2024-01-27
- Trafigura assesses Red Sea risks after tanker attacked by Houthiscnbc.com · 2024-01-27
- Red Sea oil tanker hit in most significant attack yet by Houthis (NYSE:FRO)seekingalpha.com · 2024-01-26
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
- The Index was high across this window, but no higher than the surrounding period — the elevation belongs to that wider stretch of news, not to this incident alone, so it is not counted among the incidents that moved the Index.
- 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: Houthis attack oil tankers in Red Sea, peak 136.6 on 27 January 2024. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2024-houthis-attack-oil-tankers-in-red-sea/