PresentationAlexandra Preitschopf

Research on anti-Semitism

• Use of Voyant – word cloud of the charter of Hamas (1988) – often

cited as example of Islamist motivated anti-Semitic argumentation

Term „Israel“ not mentioned a single time (< Hamas # Israel‘s right

to exist)

Religious connoted terms such as „Allah“, „Islamic“, „Jihad“ most

frequent terms

Research on anti-Semitism in social media statements

• Use of SentiStrength: clear classification in positive and negative connoted terms not really applicable or sufficient with regard to anti-Semitic statements, also due to often used subtle allusions or a certain background meaning behind the words

for example, statement such as “Hitler has done a great job” – logically – classified by Sentistrength as positive (positive strength +3; negative strength -1)

“Israel rules the world” = neutral (positive strength +1; negative strength -1)

“The Zionists control everything” = neutral

Conclusion• Combination of qualitative and quantitative approach huge potential

for future research on contemporary anti-Semitism?

Tool which enables to search systematically and quantitatively selected social media contents with regard to the frequency of certain phrases or combination of words?

a (classification) list of combinations of terms would necessary first based on qualitative research on recent anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic argumentations

for instance this list could contain combinations such as “Israel – racist apartheid state”, Gaza – (new) Auschwitz”, “Israelis – (new) Nazis”, “Allah – destroy – Israel”, “Allah – kill –( all) – Jews”, “Israel – child murderer”, “Israel – murderer of prophet – Jesus”,..