IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/tefoso/v179y2022ics0040162522001263.html

Social media communication during natural disasters and the impact on the agricultural market

Author

Listed:
  • Platania, Federico
  • Hernandez, C. Toscano
  • Arreola, Fernanda

Abstract

When a natural disaster occurs, it is crucial to establish appropriate channels of communication between government agencies and the public, not only in the interest of efficient emergency responses and relief operations but also to inform the population and contain people’s concerns. In this paper, we study how the social media activity of government agencies involved in disaster management affects the agricultural market during natural disasters and extreme weather conditions. Our results suggest that social media activity, in particular that of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), triggers market-related and public concerns about potential shortages and financial losses, which may push up the price of agricultural commodities. We show that higher levels of public concern about global warming and economic policy uncertainty intensify the market reaction, boosting the social media impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Platania, Federico & Hernandez, C. Toscano & Arreola, Fernanda, 2022. "Social media communication during natural disasters and the impact on the agricultural market," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:179:y:2022:i:c:s0040162522001263
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121594
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162522001263
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121594?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jan Beck, 2013. "Predicting climate change effects on agriculture from ecological niche modeling: who profits, who loses?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 116(2), pages 177-189, January.
    2. Saffron O’Neill & Hywel T. P. Williams & Tim Kurz & Bouke Wiersma & Maxwell Boykoff, 2015. "Dominant frames in legacy and social media coverage of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(4), pages 380-385, April.
    3. Yuan, Yu, 2015. "Market-wide attention, trading, and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 548-564.
    4. Matthew R. Sisco & Valentina Bosetti & Elke U. Weber, 2017. "When do extreme weather events generate attention to climate change?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 227-241, July.
    5. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    6. Chen, Chi-Chung & McCarl, Bruce, 2009. "Hurricanes and Possible Intensity Increases: Effects on and Reactions from U.S. Agriculture," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(1), pages 125-144, April.
    7. Corey Lesk & Pedram Rowhani & Navin Ramankutty, 2016. "Influence of extreme weather disasters on global crop production," Nature, Nature, vol. 529(7584), pages 84-87, January.
    8. repec:nas:journl:v:115:y:2018:p:9216-9221 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Kirsty Lewis & Claire Witham, 2012. "Agricultural commodities and climate change," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(sup01), pages 53-61, September.
    10. Maria Petrova & Ananya Sen & Pinar Yildirim, 2021. "Social Media and Political Contributions: The Impact of New Technology on Political Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 2997-3021, May.
    11. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2008. "All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 785-818, April.
    12. Gabriele Ranco & Darko Aleksovski & Guido Caldarelli & Miha Grčar & Igor Mozetič, 2015. "The Effects of Twitter Sentiment on Stock Price Returns," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-21, September.
    13. Hallstrom, Daniel G. & Smith, V. Kerry, 2005. "Market responses to hurricanes," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 541-561, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Saura, Jose Ramon & Ribeiro-Navarrete, Samuel & Palacios-Marqués, Daniel & Mardani, Abbas, 2023. "Impact of extreme weather in production economics: Extracting evidence from user-generated content," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    2. Messeni Petruzzelli, Antonio & Mora, Luca & Natalicchio, Angelo & Platania, Federico & Toscano Hernandez, Celina, 2024. "Consumers’ reaction to sci-fi as a source of information for technological development: An empirical analysis," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    3. Hosseinifard, Zahra & Layaoen, Haerold Dean & Abareshi, Ahmad & Abbasi, Babak & Sheu, Jiuh-Biing, 2025. "A critical evaluation of non-profit organizations’ contributions to disaster management: Historical perspectives and future trends in operations management research," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    4. Khalfaoui, Rabeh & Mefteh-Wali, Salma & Viviani, Jean-Laurent & Ben Jabeur, Sami & Abedin, Mohammad Zoynul & Lucey, Brian M., 2022. "How do climate risk and clean energy spillovers, and uncertainty affect U.S. stock markets?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    5. Kampouris, Ilias & Mertzanis, Charilaos & Samitas, Aristeidis, 2025. "Natural disaster shocks and commodity market volatility: A machine learning approach," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    6. Jiawang Zhang & Jianguo Wang & Shengbo Chen & Siqi Tang & Wutao Zhao, 2022. "Multi-Hazard Meteorological Disaster Risk Assessment for Agriculture Based on Historical Disaster Data in Jilin Province, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-25, June.
    7. Feng, Yi & Wang, Xinwei & Wang, Dujuan & Yin, Yunqiang & Ignatius, Joshua, 2025. "An interpretable two-stage adaptive deep learning model for humanitarian aid information prediction and emergency response support," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    8. Evangelista, Samantha Shane & Wenceslao, Charldy & Villarosa, Rica & Maturan, Fatima & Atibing, Nadine May & Ocampo, Lanndon, 2025. "Perceived bidirectional coordination on disaster-induced health-related efforts among decision-making units," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    9. Banerjee, Ameet Kumar & Özer, Zeynep Sueda & Rahman, Molla Ramizur & Sensoy, Ahmet, 2024. "How does the time-varying dynamics of spillover between clean and brown energy ETFs change with the intervention of climate risk and climate policy uncertainty?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 442-468.
    10. Cioroianu, Iulia & Corbet, Shaen & Hou, Yang (Greg) & Hu, Yang & Larkin, Charles & Taffler, Richard, 2024. "Exploring the use of emotional sentiment to understanding market response to unexpected corporate pivots," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(PA).
    11. Platania, Federico & Toscano Hernandez, Celina & Moreno, Manuel & Appio, Francesco, 2023. "The impact of public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ardia, David & Aymard, Clément & Cenesizoglu, Tolga, 2025. "Examining high-frequency patterns in Robinhood users’ trading behavior," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    2. Ozdamar, Melisa & Sensoy, Ahmet & Akdeniz, Levent, 2022. "Retail vs institutional investor attention in the cryptocurrency market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    3. Christophe J. GODLEWSKI & Katarzyna BYRKA-KITA & Renata GOLA & Jacek CYPRYJANSKI, 2022. "Silence is not golden anymore? Social media activity and stock market valuation in Europe," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2022-04, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    4. Plante, Michael, 2019. "OPEC in the news," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 163-172.
    5. Yen-Ju Hsu & Yang-Cheng Lu & J. Jimmy Yang, 2021. "News sentiment and stock market volatility," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 1093-1122, October.
    6. Horváth, Roman & Kalistová, Anna & Lyócsa, Štefan & Miškufová, Marta & Moravcová, Michala, 2025. "Do hurricanes cause storm on the stock market? The case of US energy companies," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    7. Verhoeks, Ralph C. & Verschoor, Willem F.C. & Zwinkels, Remco C.J., 2024. "Wall street watches Washington: Asset pricing implications of policy uncertainty," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    8. Zhi Da & Jian Hua & Tim Chih-Ching Hung & Lin Peng, 2025. "Market Returns and a Tale of Two Types of Attention," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 71(12), pages 10505-10537, December.
    9. Aharon, David Y. & Qadan, Mahmoud, 2018. "What drives the demand for information in the commodity market?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 532-543.
    10. Han, Liyan & Xu, Yang & Yin, Libo, 2018. "Does investor attention matter? The attention-return relationships in FX markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 644-660.
    11. Umar, Tarik, 2022. "Complexity aversion when SeekingAlpha," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2).
    12. Zhang, Bobo & Zhang, Zhou, 2022. "Shining light on corporate political spending: Evidence from shareholder engagements," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    13. Chin‐Hsien Yu & Bruce A. McCarl & Jian‐Da Zhu, 2022. "Market response to typhoons: The role of information and expectations," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(2), pages 496-521, October.
    14. Wang, Albert Y. & Young, Michael, 2023. "Mood, attention, and household trading: Evidence from terrorist attacks," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    15. Ehrmann, Michael & Jansen, David-Jan, 2022. "Stock return comovement when investors are distracted: More, and more homogeneous," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    16. Han, Liyan & Xu, Yang & Yin, Libo, 2018. "Forecasting the CNY-CNH pricing differential: The role of investor attention," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 232-247.
    17. Lee M. Dunham & Tirimba Obonyo, 2025. "Industry peers stock liquidity and M&A," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(1), pages 78-94, January.
    18. Alan Crane & Kevin Crotty & Tarik Umar, 2023. "Hedge Funds and Public Information Acquisition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3241-3262, June.
    19. Michaely, Roni & Rubin, Amir & Vedrashko, Alexander, 2016. "Are Friday announcements special? Overcoming selection bias," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 65-85.
    20. Bashir, Hajam Abid & Kumar, Dilip, 2025. "Unveiling investor sentiment, attention, and speed of price adjustment in Indian market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:179:y:2022:i:c:s0040162522001263. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00401625 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.