News Coverage of the Third Palestinian Intifada Through the Facebook Hashtag (#Alquds_Intifada)

On the first of October 2010, the third Palestinian intifada broke out in the face of Israeli forces, and since then hundreds have been killed, majority of them Palestinians. This study will address the role of social networking sites in this intifada, where Facebook was chosen as the most popular social networking sites in Palestine. Social networking sites were taking important during the intifada because of their widespread use by the Palestinians. They were used to transfer events and cover them by ordinary citizens. Things went even further when the incitement was used to resist the Israeli occupation and to carry out operations against Israeli forces. This study is based on the use of Palestinian publications in the 2016 website on Facebook to learn how to use social media sites to relay the news of the intifada, as well as the incitement to increase the strength of the intifada and to encourage young people to carry out operations against Israel. The study is based on the test of two media theories, the Diffusion of Innovations Theory and Uses and Gratifications theory. In addition, the quantitative methodology and method of content analysis were used in the study. The researcher developed a list of 384 publications which used #Alquds_intifada hashtag during 2016 as a sample of the study, analyzing its content and the speech used in it. The main findings of this study are that Facebook played a major role during the intifada, as the transfer of events related to the intifada and the practice of incitement had a significant impact on the ground. Through religious and inflammatory terms used increased acts of resistance. The indications are that the majority of the Palestinians who carried out operations were young people between 16-22 years, which explains their impact on the content of the media, which was presented through Facebook during the intifada.