An Analysis of Web Coverage on the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake Disaster

Abstract

In this study, we analyzed big data consisting of news published on the web about the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake over the course of a month and compared it with earthquakes that have occurred in the past. Our findings are summarized as follows: 1) In the case of web news on the Kumamoto earthquake, the “media half-life” of the disaster, or the time it took for media coverage to decrease to half of its peak amount, was one week, which is roughly the same as that of the 2004 Niigata Chuetsu earthquake. 2) The scope of human support corresponded to the scope and coverage of human and material damage, and no municipalities deviated from this, which means that, remarkably, we did not see any disparities in news coverage or human support, as was the case with the Great East Japan Earthquake.