Narratives of Distortion: U.S. Institutional Media and the Polarization of Gaza War Coverage

This study develops a comprehensive framework to analyze U.S. media coverage of the Gaza war at the institutional level. Examining 134,735 news items published by 131 outlets on websites and Facebook during the first year of the war, the analysis uncovers deep and systemic fractures driven by ideological bias in the media. Network “connectomes” of sourcing revealed that partisan outlets overwhelmingly dominated the war narrative, while nonpartisan outlets played a minor role. Highly partisan outlets produced extreme narratives saturated with socio-psychological cues, abstract frames, and negative sentiment, constructing distorted depictions of the conflict. Audience engagement mirrored these divides, with liberals, conservatives, and nonpartisans exhibiting sharply divergent sharing and reaction patterns, and fractures emerging even within ideological camps. These findings demonstrate that institutional U.S. media manufactured partisan Gaza war narratives that entrenched polarization across society, creating pathways of cognitive distortion that reinforced inter-party division while fueling intra-party fragmentation.