Kinetic events drive oil prices. After the shock, media divergence tracks the recovery.
Six months of daily scoring across RT, Al Jazeera, CGTN, Reuters, BBC and NY Times shows that kinetic events —
not narrative divergence — are the primary driver of oil price moves. When the US and Israel struck Iran on February 28, 2026
and Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, WTI surged from $67 to $95 in one week while media polarization stayed low:
all outlets reported the same undisputed facts.
What emerges after the initial shock is more nuanced. As the crisis evolved, non-Western outlets (RT, Al Jazeera, CGTN)
framed Iran as a sovereign nation under illegal attack — sustaining alarm and supply-disruption narratives.
Western outlets (Reuters, BBC, NY Times) framed it as a targeted military operation with defined objectives — signalling
eventual resolution. This divergence in interpretation, measured as directional cluster gap, showed a
statistically significant correlation with WTI at 3-day lag (r=0.329, p=0.011):
when non-Western framing ran hotter than Western framing, oil prices tended to remain elevated 3 days later.
r = —
cluster divergence vs WTI · lag 3d
p = —
statistical significance
—
days of live data collected
Example: After the April 8 ceasefire, RT continued framing Iran as "resisting Western aggression" while Reuters reported
"gradual Hormuz reopening underway." This divergence — non-Western alarm versus Western normalisation — preceded
the slower-than-expected oil price decline. Prices stayed above $95 for two more weeks before falling toward $69.
The narrative gap appears to have reflected genuine market uncertainty about whether the ceasefire would hold.
Last run
Days of data
—
live since May 2026
Outlets tracked
6
RT · AJ · CGTN · Reuters · BBC · NYT
Current divergence
—
std dev across outlets
Narrative polarization vs WTI crude — with 2026 Iran war phases
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Polarization shown as 7-day rolling average to reduce daily noise.
Outlet cluster scores — latest
Outlet
Score
Sentiment
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Current cluster divergence
—
2026 Iran war — five phases
Sep 2025 – Feb 27
Pre-war tension
Outlets diverging on Iran threat. RT/CGTN vs Reuters/BBC framing gap widens. WTI $55–$67.
Leads
Feb 28 – Mar 9
US-Israel strikes · Hormuz closes
Khamenei killed. Strait closed. All outlets report same facts. WTI $67 → $95 while polarization stays low.
Lags
Mar 10 – Apr 7
Crisis peak · interpretation battle
WTI peaks at $113. Polarization rises as outlets diverge on meaning, not facts.
Lags
Apr 8 – Jun 14
Ceasefire · Hormuz reopens
Pakistan-mediated MOU. Outlets converge on de-escalation. WTI $113 → $69.
Pipeline: GitHub Actions · 22:00 UTC daily · Neon PostgreSQL
▸ Supplementary — hypothesis design and statistical results
Three hypotheses were tested using Pearson correlation at lag 0–7 days between daily polarization signals and WTI closing prices.
H1 and H2 returned null results. H3 — directional cluster divergence — returned a statistically significant signal (r=0.329, p=0.011).
Expand to see the full r, p-value and lag for each hypothesis, plus a link to the source code.
Significance threshold p < 0.05. Sample size — days of live data.
H1Polarization std dev predicts oil better than mean sentiment—
H2Anticipated shock premium on quiet Reuters days—
H3Directional cluster divergence (non-Western minus Western)—