Gaza Flotilla Fight Tops News Online

The May 31 clash in which Israeli soldiers killed nine people on a Turkish ship carrying supplies to the Gaza Strip triggered a passionate blogosphere response focused largely on who was to blame. For the week of May 31-June 4, nearly a third (32%) of the news links on blogs were about this latest outbreak of Mideast violence, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

In a debate that reflected the passions surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a majority of bloggers expressed outrage over Israel's actions, saying it had improperly attacked a peaceful aid ship in international waters. A vocal minority, however, defended Israel, declaring that the country acted in legitimate self-defense. Indeed, three out of the five most-viewed news videos on YouTube last week were scenes of the violence aboard the ship, Mavi Marmara, provided by the Israeli Defense Forces in an effort to defend their actions. That story also generated significant attention in the mainstream press last week, although not to the extent that it did on blogs. It was the second-largest story of the week filling 13% of the media newshole, behind only news about the oil spill along the Gulf coast.

The second-largest story on blogs last week, at 22%, was an interactive graphic on BBC's website highlighting the world's 500 fastest supercomputers. The web page included illustrations of the list produced by a project called TOP500. Many tech-focused bloggers shared their observations gleaned from the graphic such as which operating systems were most common.