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Hurricanes and hashtags: Online collective attention for natural disasters

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PLOS

Hurricanes and hashtags: online collective attention for natural disasters

image: Hashtag attention map and usage rate time series. For 1-grams matching the case-insensitive pattern "#hurricane*" for all four hurricanes reaching at least category 4 in the 2017 hurricane season. Markers along the hurricane trajectory indicate the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported position for every day at noon UTC. On the map, the smoothed rate of hashtag usage is wrapped in an envelope around the hurricane trajectory in panel A, showing the spatial dependence of attention on Twitter. In the lower two plots, panels B and C, we show the usage rates for hashtags and 2-grams matching hurricane* in English language tweets on linear and logarithmic scales. Usage rates within all tweets are indicated with a solid line, while usage rates in 'organic' tweets (tweets that are not retweets), are represented by a dashed line. The day of maximum attention on Twitter is marked with a star or a diamond for hashtags or 2-grams, respectively. Generally, hurricanes making landfall on the continental United States received greater attention than those not making landfall. The hashtag usage rate for hurricanes Harvey and Irma at their maximum were approximately an order of magnitude larger than the maximum hashtag usage corresponding to Hurricane Maria, and two orders of magnitude larger than Hurricane Jose. view more 

Credit: Arnold et al, 2021, PLOS ONE (CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

"Hurricane attention maps" reveal that higher-category storms generate many times more Twitter attention than lower-category storms, even when they cause the same damage and death.

Article Title: Hurricanes and hashtags: Characterizing online collective attention for natural disasters

Funding: This work was supported by gifts from the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company and Google. Additionally, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company provided support in the form of salaries for author DRD, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the 'author contributions' section.

Competing Interests: I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: Author DRD's commercial affiliation with paid employment. Additionally, we have received funding from a commercial source: Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company and Google. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251762

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