Witnessing the 2014 Gaza War in Tumblr

Abstract

During the summer of 2014, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge against Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip. The decades old conflict between Israel and Palestine flared up after three teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the West Bank by rogue Hamas members. The 2014 war left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead, with much of the death and suffering in Gaza witnessed in, through, and by media. This research examines the witnessing of this conflict by Muslim bloggers in microblogging platform Tumblr. It considers how bloggers in the space worked to make sense of what they witnessed, how they worked to advocate for Palestinians, and how the space made visible contestations over whose experiences, as victims and as witnesses, were most important for understanding the conflict.