Institute for the
Study of Contemporary Antisemitism

When the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building took place, many people were surprised. But not extremism researchers such as IU's Gunther Jikeli. For the last several years, Jikeli, an historian and sociologist in the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, has been working with a team of graduate students to study the world of online hate speech and how it relates to actions and events in the offline world. "You find a lot of very awful stuff, the worst things you can imagine, on the internet. We know it's out there. The question is, what's the impact?" Jikeli said. "How is it related to the offline world? That connection is difficult to see, but you can see it in the actions at the Capitol. We're trying to figure out how we can better see those connections."

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