Tuesday 24 December 2024 · one signal · spike
Ursa Major cargo ship sinks in Mediterranean
The Russian cargo ship Ursa Major sank in the Mediterranean Sea on December 24, 2024, following an engine room explosion. Russian authorities described the incident as a suspected terrorist attack. The vessel was reportedly involved in an evacuation mission to Syria. Two crew members were reported missing.
Peak 94.2 on Wednesday 25 December 2024. 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.
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 84% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Monday 20 May 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: human drama. Trade press was 4% 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 85% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 86% negative overall; 41% 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.
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Ursa Major cargo ship sinks in Mediterranean, peak 94.2 on 25 December 2024. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2024-ursa-major-cargo-ship-sinks-in-mediterranean/