Batikas, MichailNitsch, Nicholas2026-04-022026-04-022025-01-162025-02-16http://hdl.handle.net/10362/202011This paper examines how mass shootings influence consumer perceptions of restaurants using over 900,000 Yelp reviews from 50,000 U.S. restaurants. Staggered Difference-in-Differences (DiD) and sentiment analysis (VADER, BERT) are employed to assess changes in sentiment, review length, ratings, and frequency at distances of 5 km, 10 km, and 20 km post-incident. Contrary to expectations, limited evidence is found that mass shootings significantly affect sentiment, ratings, or review volume. Although minor shifts occur—fewer food-oriented comments and occasional mentions of shootings—no consistent negative patterns emerge. These findings suggest subtler or undetected impacts not fully captured by online reviews.engGun violenceYelpRestaurantsReviewText sentimentBig dataDifference-in-differencesStaggered difference-in-differencesConsumer «behaviorOnline word of mouthGun violence archiveNLPCausal inferenceVADERBusiness analyticsBusiness and data analyticsDataData visualizationLLMMistralBERTmaster thesis204133831