From Feeds to News: Integrating Palestinian Influencer Content into MENA TV Newsrooms during the Gaza War

Abstract

This paper is a systematic investigation of the integration of the content of MENA television newsrooms into the Palestinian influence in the Gaza War. When social media is one of the main sources of information and a site for witnessing, influencers become mediators between warring regions and the mass audience more and more. We used a systematic review approach and conducted a thorough search of scholarly and professional media publications of 2025, employing strict identification, screening, eligibility, and data extraction methods. The extracted studies were examined using both content mapping and thematic synthesis to find out patterns of newsroom integration, verification practices, and narrative framing. The results show that MENA newsrooms practice a hybrid form of gatekeeping that combines the urgency and emotional appeal of influencer content with editorial practices and algorithmically driven viewer metrics. Reusing influencer video content, being co-produced with the newsroom social teams, and variable attribution are fairly standard practices, with cross-platform triangulation and metadata analysis becoming more frequent as the source of verification. The broadcast narratives are heavily influenced by the material of an influencer, and their humanitarian and emotional framing are predominant, while strategy and resistance frames moderate. The research is relevant to the media and journalism literature because it helps to fill research gaps in the production of hybrid news during conflict situations, sheds some light on the changing role of social media influencers in Arab news systems, and offers future empirical and comparative studies in the area.