Nitin Agarwal Institution Verified

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◆ ARA Academy High Impact

COSMOS Research Center - Social Media Analytics and Socio-Cognitive Security

University of Arkansas at Little Rock

faculty

30 h-index 318 pubs 4,110 cited

Research Areas

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ORCID Lab Website

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OverviewAI-generated summary

Nitin Agarwal is the founding director of the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS) and the Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor of Information Science at the University of Arkansas – Little Rock. His research program focuses on understanding digital and cyber social behaviors as they emerge and evolve on online platforms. He leads projects funded by agencies including the Department of Defense, DARPA, the Department of State, and the National Science Foundation, with a combined funding exceeding $25 million. These efforts also support a long-term partnership between UA Little Rock and the Department of Homeland Security. Dr. Agarwal has developed publicly available social media analysis tools, such as Blogtracker and YouTubeTracker, which have been utilized by organizations including NATO Strategic Communications and Public Affairs, European Defense agencies, and the Singapore government.

His scholarly work includes over 318 publications and has garnered over 4,110 citations, with an h-index of 30. Agarwal is recognized as an ARA Academy member (ARA Scholar) in the research area of Cyber Social Computing and is designated as a highly cited researcher. He is a faculty fellow at the International Computer Science Institute at the University of California - Berkeley. His recent publications explore topics such as social bots, toxicity propagation in online discourse, video recommendation bias, multimodal emotion assessment on YouTube, and the application of diffusion of innovations theory to social networks.

Metrics

h-index: 30
Publications: 318
Citations: 4,110

Selected Publications

Beyond the Click: How YouTube Thumbnails Shape User Interaction and Algorithmic Recommendations (2025) DOI
Telegram as a Battlefield: Kremlin-Related Communications During the Russia-Ukraine Conflict (2025) DOI
Modeling cross-platform narrative templates: a temporal knowledge graph approach (2025) DOI
Developing a network-centric approach for anomalous behavior detection on youtube (2025) DOI
A comparative evaluation of social network analysis tools: performance and community engagement perspectives (2025) DOI
Are Narratives Contagious? Modeling Narrative Diffusion Using Epidemiological Theories (2025) DOI
Unveiling Bias in YouTube Shorts: Analyzing Thumbnail Recommendations and Topic Dynamics (2024) DOI
Developing Epidemiological Models with Differentiated Infected Intensity (2024) DOI
The bias beneath: analyzing drift in YouTube’s algorithmic recommendations (2024) DOI
Emotion Assessment of YouTube Videos using Color Theory (2024) DOI
Examining Multimodel Emotion Assessment and Resonance with Audience on YouTube (2024) DOI
High-Speed Transcript Collection on Multimedia Platforms: Advancing Social Media Research through Parallel Processing (2024) DOI
Investigating Bias in YouTube Recommendations: Emotion, Morality, and Network Dynamics in China-Uyghur Content (2024) DOI
Characterizing Suspicious Commenter Behaviors (2023) DOI
Analyzing Bias in Recommender Systems: A Comprehensive Evaluation of YouTube's Recommendation Algorithm (2023) DOI

ARA Academy 2018 ARA Scholar

Dr. Agarwal directs the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS). His work centers on cyber social behaviors in modern information platforms with applications spanning defense, security, health, business, marketing, finance, and education. His specific areas include cyber information campaigns, social computing, deviant behavior modeling, group dynamics, social-cyber forensics, and privacy.

Policy Impact

Directs the COSMOS research center, attracting defense and security funding for social media analytics research that addresses national cybersecurity priorities from Arkansas.