Multilingual social media analysis reveals global patterns and language imbalances in volcanic eruption coverage

The study tries to understand how people's access and engagement with volcanic hazard information in the attention economy is critical for crisis response and building long-term preparedness. Volcanic eruptions can have widespread effects, potentially creating language barriers for risk communication and aid provision. Though social media offers a proxy for public attention to geohazards, previous studies have been limited to single events, short timescales, and/or monolingual analyses. Accordingly, there's a lack of detail on how social media reflects real-world volcanic activity, how notable eruptions shape online discourse, and how language and geography influence information dissemination.

The study addresses these gaps through a longitudinal, multilingual analysis of specific keywords on X (Twitter), covering 18 languages over ~4 years. However, results reveal substantial linguistic imbalance: English dominates—even for eruptions in non-English-speaking regions—disconnecting the online visibility of eruptions from their real-world significance. To foster inclusive knowledge-sharing practice, volcanologists are strongly encouraged to actively engage with diverse linguistic groups beyond the silos of their own languages.