Jamie Farquharson

Multilingual social media analysis reveals global patterns and language imbalances in volcanic eruption coverage - Communications Earth & Environment Social media discourse reflects public engagement with volcanic hazard, but English is the dominant language even in non-English speaking regions, according to a four-year-long longitudinal study across 18 languages on /Twitter.

Check out more insights in the paper ☛ doi.org/10.1038/s432...
Feel free to get in touch with any questions, or if you are interested in communicating volcanology across languages, or if you want to work with a mountain of social media data…

~fin~

Of course, these results are from Twitter data: not universally popular or even globally accessible. These results could look very different using data from other social media platforms like VK, Telegram, Bluesky, or QQ. The methods and analyses should be transferrable though.

This undoubtedly influences our perceptions of the distribution and relative importance of volcanic hazard around the world.

English dominates on Twitter. In the dataset used here, the max number of posts per day containing “volcanic eruption” was over 61,000. Compare that with say, French (max. ~3700 posts per day) or Amharic (max. 2 posts per day)...

We can use various stats and data visualisation approaches to compare & quantify interlingual dynamics: a picture emerges that some languages are dominant in shaping the online discourse about volcanic stuff (“leaders”), others are “followers,” and yet others are isolated online ecosystems.

However, when an eruption becomes “newsworthy” they can significantly modify discourse about volcanic hazards in general. For example, there is a step-change in the background level of “erupción volcánica” posts that persists long after the cessation of the Tajogaite eruption.

Not so for all eruptions: deadly eruptions like the Semeru 2021 catastrophe were underrepresented relative to less-damaging eruptions like Fagradallfjall, and some eruptions (e.g. Sakurajima Aug 2022 or Sheveluch Apr 2023) cause barely a ripple in the Twittersphere.

A graph of vertically overlapping timeseries, with a prominent spike labelled as “HTHH.” (Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai) The individual timeseries traces are labelled from top-to-bottom: volcanic eruption; erupción volcánica; éruption volcanique; letusan gunung berapi; vulkanausbruch; erupção vulcânica; извержение вулкана; volkanik patlama; 火山爆发; vulkaanuitbarsting; eldgos; eruzione vulcanica; ภูเขาไฟระเบิด; ثوران†بركاني 산 분출; 火山噴火; erupsi vulkanik; የእሳተ ገሞራ ፍንዳታ.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha`apai eruption stands out as the dominant event across almost all languages. People were talking about it all over the planet!

A graph of vertically overlapping timeseries, with a prominent spike labelled as “Fagradalsfjall.” The individual timeseries traces are labelled from top-to-bottom: volcanic eruption; erupción volcánica; éruption volcanique; letusan gunung berapi; vulkanausbruch; erupção vulcânica; извержение вулкана; volkanik patlama; 火山爆发; vulkaanuitbarsting; eldgos; eruzione vulcanica; ภูเขาไฟระเบิด; ثوران†بركاني 산 분출; 火山噴火; erupsi vulkanik; የእሳተ ገሞራ ፍንዳታ.

Using a short-term/long-term averaging approach, we can define an “anomaly score” α. Basically, spikes in α signify that Twitter activity is heightened above its background level. These event spikes tend to correspond to real-world events, which is cool.

It was a lot of data! More than 12 Million Tweet objects, each of which contains a host of information (identifier, text, URLs, timestamp, geolocation etc. etc. etc.). Sidenote: everyone puts a frightening amount of personal information on the internet.

I set up a Python script to crawl all Twitter posts in a 24-hr period w/ predefined strings in 20 languages, including “volcanic eruption” and translated equivalents, e.g. “eruption volcanique”, “火山噴火”, etc. I downloaded all those posts every day for ~4 years, until Twitter went down the shitter.

1. how does social media reflect real-world volcanic activity?
2. how do “notable” eruptions shape online discourse?
3. how do language and geography influence information dissemination?

My focus is on volcanology. Some awesome work has been done using social media data to analyse specific volcanic eruptions, incl. @jameshickey77.bsky.social and @eilyinskaya.bsky.social, or to gain insights from specific orgs (e.g. @bgs.ac.uk). I was very interested in three intersecting questions:

Once upon a time, the platform formerly known as Twitter was a vibrant meeting-place where scientists, the public, official orgs and more besides could exchange knowledge. I set out to find out how effective it could be for disseminating geoscience info

Skip to the paper ☛ doi.org/10.1038/s432...

Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:

I love this poem. Starts at a trot and finishes at a gallop 🏞️

Volcanoes in video games: the portrayal of volcanoes in commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) video games and their learning potential Abstract. Volcanoes are a very common staple in mainstream video games. Particularly within the action–adventure genres, entire missions (e.g. Monster Hunter: Generation Ultimate, 2018) or even full s...

share.google/pvUKkh7o7nV3...

doi.org/10.5194/gc-4...

@thevolcanoguy.bsky.social @grumpyvolcano.bsky.social

The symposium is free to attend and abstracts are free to submit, although there will be some social events and field excursions for which expenses will be collected locally in cash. Abstracts and registrations are still open!

Check out the website or contact me for more info.
www.thevolcano.world

We are thrilled to announce that the meeting will feature a keynote from Patricia Mothes from Instituto Geofísico of the Escuela Politécnica Nacional (IG-EPN @igepnecuador.bsky.social ), who has a wealth of experience on each of the symposium themes, and is sure to provide some terrific insights.

The “Knowledge-sharing” session will focus on how volcano research is transferred not only between researchers, but also to and from monitoring agencies and the general public. It will include a panel discussion feat. scientists from Earth Observatory Singapore, PHIVOLCS, and Earth Sciences NZ.

The "Exposure, preparedness, and risk reduction" day will feature a workshop led by ‪@laramani14.bsky.social‬
(University of Cambridge). “The next generation of volcano monitoring" will include an opportunity for showcasing monitoring software, tools, and technology.

VolcanoTech

Themes:
1. "Exposure, preparedness, and risk reduction” (co-organised by @gvra.bsky.social );
2. “The next generation of volcano monitoring" (co-organised by Volcanotech www.volcanotech.co.uk);
3. “Knowledge-sharing” (co-organised by the Asian Consortium of Volcanology kazan.bosai.go.jp/en/acv/).

An advertising flyer for a scientific symposium called "Volcanology in Practice". The flyer consists of a semi-transparent background image of Myoko volcano, Japan, overlain by text which reads: "www.thevolcano.world Volcanology in Practice international research symposium 7–10 October 2025 Niigata University, Japan" Beneath the text is a QR code which directs to the website. Logos of two Niigata University departments are included at the top of the image. On either side of the QR code is a logo for Niigata University and IAVCEI, respectively.

Are you a volcanologist or working in an adjacent field? Consider signing up for Niigata University’s 1st international symposium on “Volcanology in Practice”:
www.thevolcano.world
which will run from 7th–10th of October 2025 in Niigata, Japan, endorsed by @iavcei.bsky.social.
#volcano #science ⚒️🌋

GVRA are co-organisers for the University of Niigata Symposium on 'volcanology in practice'. We are organising Day 1 on exposure, preparedness and risk reduction &will run a workshop. Registration &abstract submission are open now. www.globalvolcanoriskalliance.com/news/news-po...

⏳Final week to sign up to the Green Party.

🗳️ Vote for Bold Leadership on August 1st.

Flash-back to a few weeks ago when @claireharnett.bsky.social won the @iavcei.bsky.social George Walker Award! 🥇 Congrats again Claire!
@farquharson.bsky.social, @alteringrocks.bsky.social, @magmatroll.bsky.social

🚨 How far are volcanologists from volcanoes? 🌋🚨 Check out our new paper here: link.springer.com/article/10.1....
What started as a conversation about whether we at @exeter.ac.uk (in Cornwall, UK) are further from volcanoes than our global colleagues turned into an exploration of a fruitful data set!

New Open Access paper out in GRL, led by Lucille Carbillet! We found that increasing temperature can close cracks within granite and reduce permeability!
@farquharson.bsky.social
Check it out 👇
doi.org/10.1029/2024...

Gripped tenderly, I hope

It's never too late!