News Focus: A new open conflict in the Middle East: Israel-Iran. Impact online
The outbreak of a new conflict in the Middle East, with Israel attacking Iranian military installations, nuclear sites and military leaders, followed by Iran's retaliation and continued exchanges of fire between the two sides, is the main international event of the last few days. Tensions in the region have sparked widespread international reaction and analysis of the risks of widening the conflict and the possible economic or security effects.
The event was also covered by the most relevant Romanian online sources. According to data aggregated and analyzed with NewsVibe, an AI-supported media intelligence software, more than 2,000 common mentions about Israel and Iran were recorded in the interval from the outbreak of the conflict to the present.
The two states were also previously in the spotlight in the Romanian online area, but most of the time they were treated separately, without a focus on the theme of mutual tensions. Israel was mostly in the media in relation to the situation in Gaza, while Iran was present in the context of the discussions on its nuclear program, with a focus on the prospects of negotiations with the US, in which Russia would also be involved. Israel was only tangentially mentioned as an actor that could intervene forcefully in the Iranian nuclear dossier or in connection with Tehran's support for terrorist groups responsible for attacks against the Israeli state.
Grafic NewsVibe. Evolution in the number of shared mentions of Israel and Iran, and their total impact, over the last month
Predominant sources
The top sources that mentioned the Israeli-Iranian conflict most often were exclusively generalist and news platforms, as well as Facebook pages associated with such media sources. Of these, the sites Adevărul, EVZ.ro, stiripesurse and Ziare.com stand out, as well as the Facebook page stiripesurse.ro, each with over 50 mentions of the Middle East conflict.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top relevant web sources that covered the Israel-Iran conflict , from June 12 to June 16, 2025
Top keywords mentioned
The most frequently mentioned terms, in articles and social media posts about the new conflict in the Middle East, are, in addition to the main state actors, the name of the region (Middle East), the names of cities that have been targeted by attacks (Tehran, Tel Aviv), of Israeli and Iranian leaders (Benjamin Netanyahu, Ali Khamenei), as well as other countries and international leaders who have reacted or intervened diplomatically in the conflict (Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, United States, Russia).
Graphic NewsVibe. Top entities mentioned in the context of mentions of the Israel-Iran conflict , from June 12 to June 16, 2025
Evaluating the tone of communication
The NewsVibe platform has created an advanced sentiment analysis system that uses artificial intelligence, specially trained algorithms, and LLM-like language models to detect nuances of tone - favorable, unfavorable, or neutral - in the context of references to entities relevant to an online conversation.
Grafic NewsVibe. Automated assessment of the tone of online conversation about the Israel-Iran conflict , from June 12 to June 16, 2025
Most of the mentions are qualified by the NewsVibe algorithm as neutral, as they are articles and social media posts largely focused on conveying information: reports on the evolution of the conflict, takes on the positions of the two sides, international reactions and, to a lesser extent, domestic reactions, as well as reports on the situation of Romanians in the conflict zone. Given the tense context, mentions with a positive tone are completely missing.
Emoji and hashtags
The most used emoji in social media posts related to the conflict in the Middle East symbolize alert alert, news, shock and breaking news, but also illustrations referring to Romania, Iran, Israel, US. They are emoji that indicate that the sources are more oriented towards the informational side of the conflict and less towards the emotional side.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top emoji used on Facebook in conversations about the Israel-Iran conflict , from June 12 to June 16, 2025
The most commonly used hashtags in social media posts about the Middle East conflict are #israel, #iran, #news, #news, #newsisrael, #geopolitics, #newsiran.
Grafic NewsVibe. Top hashtags used on Facebook in conversations about the Israel-Iran conflict , from June 12 to June 16, 2025
The recent conflict in the Middle East has generated a significant wave of reactions in the Romanian online space, dominated by informative reporting and neutral analysis. Although the emotional tone has been moderate, the scale and pace of the mentions show an increased interest of the most relevant online sources in the evolution of events and their geopolitical implications.
*****Summary compiled using a monitoring feed provided by NewsVibe Romania. The analysis, data and images presented were enhanced with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tools.
