Scrolling Past Suffering: Ethnocentric Media, Distrust, and Humanitarian Responsibility

Abstract

This study investigates the extent to which Israeli Jews’ exposure to Israeli news coverage through social media platforms and their distrust of Palestinians predict their sense of humanitarian responsibility toward Palestinians, within the context of the 2023–2025 Israel-Hamas war. Our analysis is based on a representative sample of Israeli Jews (N = 903) obtained through public opinion polling. In line with our expectation, exposure to Israeli news coverage and distrust of Palestinians each made a significant contribution to explaining a Jewish-Israeli (decreased) sense of humanitarian responsibility toward Palestinians (R² = .30). Distrust also partially mediated the association between news exposure and humanitarian responsibility. In addition, hawkishness and level of religiosity significantly contributed to the overall explanatory power of the model (R² = .43). Higher levels of all predictor variables were associated with a decreased sense of humanitarian responsibility toward Palestinians. The implications of our findings for understanding the role of media coverage in shaping humanitarian responsibility toward the opponent in asymmetric conflict are discussed.