Saturday 13 April 2024 · below the Index · spike
Iran seizes container ship in Strait of Hormuz
On or around 13 April 2024, Iran's Revolutionary Guard seized the container ship MSC Aries near the Strait of Hormuz amid tensions with the West. The vessel carried 17 Indian crew members. The seizure was part of Iranian paramilitary operations in the region.
Peak 166.8 on Saturday 13 April 2024. 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 96% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Tuesday 2 April 2024.
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 0% 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 98% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 88% negative overall; 12% 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
- Amid outrage over Iranian seizure of container ship, focus switches to release of crewtradewindsnews.com · 2024-04-15
- Iran's Revolutionary Guard seizes a container ship near Strait of Hormuz amid tensions with Westtheweek.in · 2024-04-13
- Strait of Hormuz | Iran's Revolutionary Guard seizes container ship near Strait of Hormuz amid tensions with Westtelegraphindia.com · 2024-04-13
- Iran's Revolutionary Guard Seizes Container Ship Near Strait of Hormuznewsmax.com · 2024-04-13
- Iranian media says IRGC seizes container ship in the Strait of Hormuzupi.com · 2024-04-13
- Iran's Revolutionary Guard seizes an Israeli-affiliated container ship near Strait of Hormuztheglobeandmail.com · 2024-04-13
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: Iran seizes container ship in Strait of Hormuz, peak 166.8 on 13 April 2024. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2024-iran-seizes-container-ship-in-strait-of-hormuz/