The Israeli-Palestinain Conflict Takes To The Twittersphere
By Hadas Kuznits
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Israel and the Palestinians aren't just fighting on the ground but the notorious staunch enemies have both taken to Twitter to present their sides of the conflict.
Jonah Berger, assistant professor of marketing at Penn's Wharton School of Business says the two sides, known on Twitter as @idfspokesperson (Israeli military handle) and @alqassambrigade (Palestinian military handle) are engaging in a literal Twitter war over public opinion.
"Even how they describe the conflict, you know, who is the aggressor and who is the defenseless person being attacked."
Berger says Twitter gives users direct access to each sides' view of the conflict.
"They're trying to make people see what it's like to be each of the sides. If you look at a lot of the pictures that the Israelis are posting, they're posting photos of individual's regular citizen's backyards that have been bombed by the Palestinians. They're really trying to put an emotional face to this crisis."
Berger says perhaps in the future this could be an interesting way to think of resolving conflicts.
"While face-to-face it's often very difficult to resolve conflicts and things get very heated, using computer-mediated communication may be a way to tone down the emotions and make communication more feasible."
