Anita Gohdes: Syria, Violence, and the Internet

When Anita Gohdes began her graduate work, she quickly found she was not satisfied with theoretical research alone, but instead wanted to tackle something more practical. She settled on researching new communication technologies and their relationship with conflict, political violence, and state repression. This is one of her areas of focus at Harvard Kennedy School, where she is a joint fellow with the Belfer Center’s International Security Program and the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP).

“When I first started out, I was somewhat disillusioned with research because I couldn’t see how it went together with reality,” said Gohdes. “Empirical conflict analysis showed me that there is a whole lot of research you can do that’s actually relevant. That’s the nice thing about both Belfer and WAPPP. They’re super geared toward that concept. You’re not just doing research, but thinking about the larger implications.”

Last fall, Gohdes was awarded the German Dissertation Prize for the Social Sciences for her dissertation “Repression in the Digital Age: Communication Technology and the Politics of State Violence.” Her focus was the Syrian government’s use of the Internet, and how it is affecting the use of more conventional forms of violence.

“I was pulled into this project on Syria working with the Human Rights Data Analysis Group because it was, and still is, so important,” Gohdes said.

At the Belfer Center, Gohdes is continuing her research on Syria. With WAPPP, she is exploring gender-based repression in conflict. One of her many goals is to clarify statistics used by media in conflict situations. She has learned, for example, that depending on whom you ask, the death tolls in conflicts are going to be reported very differently. Those statistics are spread through the Internet and picked up by media and then by the public. A government spokesperson “might falsely claim that ISIS is the main perpetrator of violence in Syria. But it’s important to look at the data and then think about where this number comes from and what the motivations for saying this are,” she said.

The good news, Gohdes said, is that the use of statistics is becoming more accurate. “Literacy of the general public is becoming much better and it’s certainly more of a conversation now.”