Lebanese Public Opinion

Online data indicates that Lebanese public opinion might have started moving away from partisanship and back to the center.

The graphs below plot the online readerships of four selected Lebanese newspapers. They are in order:
Almustaqbal, a newspaper with a partisan March 14 perspective
Albalad, a newspaper with a rather balanced perspective
Al Akhbar, a newspaper with a partisan pro-Hezbollah perspective,
Annahar, a partisan March 14 newspaper with balanced reporting.

The second graph is a closeup to the last few days of the first graph. Also indicated are important events that might have spiked/reduced readerships.

Several conclusions can be made from the above graphs, but here are a few important ones I noticed:

1- A look at Al-akhbar’s and Almustaqbal’s graphs reveals that mobilization has peaked on December 1st and has since been losing steam.

2- A look at the graphs of Albalad and Annahar shows that after the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, people started abandoning “balanced” media for more extreme and partisan outlets.

3- And finally, the above trend might have started to change. In the second graph, the last few days witnessed a spike in the readership of “balanced” media and a drop in that of the “extreme” media. This could be attributed to fatigue or to the Arab League mediation between Lebanese parties.

(Graphs powered by Alexa)

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