October 16 2020
Tamar Mitts is an Assistant Professor in the School of International and Public Affairs, and a Faculty Member at the Data Science Institute at Columbia University. Her research advances the study of conflict, contentious politics, and security policy in the digital era, with a focus on political behavior and extremism on social media platforms.
Much of her current research examines the behavior of extremist groups on social media. She studies how online engagement with extremist content is shaped by events in the offline world, how terrorist propaganda radicalizes targeted audiences, and the way in which exposure to hate speech and disinformation shapes radicalization outcomes. These projects draw on new data on the online behavior of millions of users linked to extremist groups on various social media platforms.
Beyond extremism, her research examines how the new media environment can be manipulated to affect political behavior, and the role of media framing and social identity in mobilizing mass protest movements. In several projects focusing on right-wing populism, she studies how far-right politicians mobilize supporters on social media, how ‘alternative’ online platforms serve as vehicles for the spread of misinformation, and the way in which race and ethnicity influence public perceptions, as well as the outcomes of nonviolent protests.
Mitts’s work has been published, or is forthcoming, in top political science journals, including the American Political Science Review, International Organization, the Journal of Politics, and the Journal of Economic Perspectives, among other outlets. She holds an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and a B.A., summa cum laude, in Politics with Highest Honors from New York University.
Principal Articles
Tamar Mitts, “Countering Violent Extremism and Radical Rhetoric,” International Organization 76, no. 1 (Winter 2022).
Guy Grossman, Yotam Margarita, and Tamar Mitts, “How the Ultrarich Use Media Ownership as a Political Investment,” The Journal of Politics 84, no. 4 (October 2022).
Tamar Mitts, Gregoire Phillips, and Barbara F. Walter, “Studying the Impact of ISIS Propaganda Campaigns,” The Journal of Politics 84, no. 2 (April 2022).
Devorah Manekin and Tamar Mitts, “Effective for Whom? Ethnic Identity and Nonviolent Resistance,” American Political Science Review 116, no. 1 (February 2022).
Guy Grossman, Yotam Margalit, and Tamar Mitts, “How the Ultra-Rich Use Media Ownership as a Political Investment,” The Journal of Politics, 27 January 2022.
Tamar Mitts, “Terrorism and the Rise of Right-Wing Content in Israeli Books,” International Organization 73, no. 1 (Winter 2019).
Devorah Manekin, Guy Grossman, and Tamar Mitts, “Contested Ground: Disentangling Material and Symbolic Attachment to Disputed Territory,” Political Science Research and Methods 7, no. 4 (October 2019).
Tamar Mitts, “From Isolation to Radicalization: Anti-Muslim Hostility and Support for ISIS in the West,” American Political Science Review 113, no. 1 (February 2019).
Tamar Mitts et al., “Can War Foster Cooperation?,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 30, no. 3 (Summer 2016).
Tamar Mitts, “Countering Violent Extremism and Radical Rhetoric,” International Organization (2021): 1-22.
Book Chapters
Tamar Mitts and Jack Snyder, “Regulating the Marketplace of Ideas,” in Jack Snyder, ed., Human Rights for Pragmatists (Princeton City, NY: Princeton University Press, 2022).
Other Articles, Testimony and Reports
Tamar Mitts, “Are the Taliban Losing Their Digital Clout?,” VOA News, 28 July 2022.
Tamar Mitts, Nikita Pisharody, and Jacob Shapiro, “Removal of Anti-Vaccine Content Impacts Social Media Discourse,” Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery Web Science Conference (26 June 2022).
Tamar Mitts and Jack Snyder, “When Twitter suspends users, their views get more extreme,” The Washington Post Monkey Cage, 16 June 2022.
Tamar Mitts and Devorah Manekin, “Effective for Whom? [in Hebrew],” The Institute for Liberty and Responsibility Blog, Spring 2022.
Tamar Mitts, “ISIS Radicalization, Counter-Extremism, and Visual Propaganda on Social Media,” interview with Michael Bossetta, Social Media and Politics Podcast, 24 October 2021.
