CAH Interns Present Research on Online Antisemitism and Hate Propaganda

Two Collaboratory Against Hate 2023 summer interns presented their research project methods and findings at recent academic conferences.

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Grace Garner presented work from a research team that was investigating how extremist groups incorporated COVID-19 themes into antisemitic conspiratorial narratives. Using qualitative approaches, they analyzed a set of tweets that both mentioned COVID and used common antisemitic terms. They found that many of these tweets used indirect rhetorical techniques to reinforce antisemitic conspiracy theories. With the generous support of the Jewish Studies program at the University of Pittsburgh, Grace was able to travel to Toronto to present the work to the International Communications Association. A preprint of the paper is available here and the CAH whitepaper about the work is available here. 

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Ahmad Diab presented work from a research team investigating the spread of white supremacist narratives with quantitative techniques. Comparing the appearance of common phrases in online and offline white supremacist communications, this group found that propaganda usually appeared online first, in a more explicit racist context, before appearing offline, where propaganda was often coded and framed to appeal to patriotism. Ahmad traveled to Austin, Texas, to present this work at the International Workshop on Cyber Social Threats. A preprint of this paper is available here and the proceedings are published here.