Journal: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (Springer Nature)
Title: Data-driven modeling reveals the
Western dominance of global public interest in earthquakes
Authors: Jonghun Kam, Jihun Park, Wanyun Shao, Junho Song, Jinhee Kim,
Fabrizio Terenzio Gizzi, Donatella Porrini & Young-Joo Suh
Abstract: Catastrophic earthquakes stimulate information-seeking behaviors
beyond the affected geographical boundaries; however, our understanding of the
dynamics of global public interest in earthquakes remains limited. Herein, we
harness Big Data to examine the dynamic patterns of global public interest,
concerning 17 significant worldwide earthquakes over 2004–2019. We find that
the global community shows a higher level of interest when an earthquake occurs
in developed countries than in developing countries; however, they lose their
interest in the former more rapidly than the latter. Regardless of the affected
nation, there is a one- to two-week ¡°golden¡± time window when attention can be
leveraged for fundraising and humanitarian aid. Our findings suggest that
European citizens who are highly interested in earthquakes emerge as a
potential key community to achieve great inclusiveness in policy interventions
to solicit international aid. The findings of this study hint at how Big Data
can be utilized to identify ¡°time windows of opportunities¡± for international
humanitarian organizations to efficiently raise donations, charities, and aid
resources around the world.
Article
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00914-7
Fig. 1 Sensitivity of simulated global interest in earthquake to casualties and socioeconomic development. In (a) and (b), black solid lines represent the level of global interest per death (initial global SAV divided by the casualties of the corresponding earthquake) and decay rates of global interest in earthquake estimated by the equations (non-linear and linear in (a) and (b), respectively). In (c), black contour lines depict the memory length of simulated global interest in ¡°hypothetical¡± earthquakes with a range of casualties (10–1,000 deaths) and per capita GDP (5,000–50,000). Dots depict the observed memory lengths of GSAVs of the 17 earthquakes.