"A new national survey by the Pew Research Center finds that nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults (34%) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009. Fully 43% say they do not know what Obama’s religion is."It is a little surprising that 60% of them responded they learned about President's religion from the media, in particular television. Who do you think is most responsible for this misperception?
People's political ideology or media?
You also can read a report of the Huffington Post.
I think that both parties (the media and the consumers) are equally responsible in fueling the fire behind this misconception.
ReplyDeleteSome people will believe anything. This is especially true if it reflects poorly on someone or something that they do not like. Yes, there are some people that don't like Obama. Yes, there are people that would like to make him look bad. There are also people that like to start and spread rumors. As we all know, once a rumor is started, it is hard to shut it down.
The media does not usually help to stop such rumors. Tabloids thrive upon them; the juicier the gossip, the better the sales. Many television stations believe that such controversial topics will draw in larger crowds and earn them higher ratings.
By Dani Manning
I think the reason of this misperception is people grasp what Obama said by different viewpoint.Media might tell people sober what Obama said.Media had never told people that Obama believes some specific religion.People watched or listend what Omaba said and judged Obama is like Muslim.I think this 'like' is a big problem. Most of people might have no confidence in Obama believes one specific religion but they judge by thier personal viewpoint.So, in my opinion, the personal conception of people made this misperception.I think people have responsivility in this case,however, if media reported as like Obama believes one specific religion,I think media also has responsivility.
ReplyDeleteBy Fumiya Hashizume
I think this whole situation,has got outta hand. I'm pretty sure he's Methodist, i think he led the Easter sermon or something like that. I think its just an excuse for idiots like Anne Colter and Glen Beck to help fuel the belief that this is a holy war and muslim's are monsters. To get more Idiotic viewers to tune in and watch then call everyone nazi's. Colter at one point after 9/11 had the audacity to say that we should conquer the world and make then Christian. Due to ridiculous things like the all powerful media reaches their fingers into peoples heads and makes them believe this. Then next they try and convince people that the president is a muslim to try and force him out of office to spread they're own beliefs. Its Coercion in its purest form.
ReplyDeleteBy Tegan Downs
Obama's approval rating has been steadily declining. People are not happy with the current state of America and want someone to blame. The media has seen this and is fueling the fire with the best rumors they can find. They are not putting out any solid evidence that says he is Muslim, but are giving people just enough information to let their minds wander and believe that he is. I feel it is both the media and the public's fault. The media is putting out half-truths that can easily be misperceived and people are assuming these things to be true without any piece of proof or evidence whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteBy Zeph Davis
I think that it is all the fox talk shows and CNN news who are responsible for the misinterpretations. That is why you should not believe what the media tells you all the time. But it is a little bit the public's fault too.
ReplyDeleteBy: Jay Simmons
The public and the media hold equal responsibility for this confusion.
ReplyDeleteThe public needs to be careful when relying on the media for facts and important information. Especially, when the public has the availability and power to find the truth. We shouldn't just believe what we hear or see on the news.
The media needs to present only the facts, and its sources. The media should display both sides of the story and not place their own interpretation on it.
While the media is there to inform the public, it is still the responsibility of the public to seek out the truth.
I would agree that both the media and the consumer have influenced this "misconception".
ReplyDeleteI think it's sort of like the game "telephone" one person hears it and as it goes down the line the whole message is completely distorted. Perhaps someone in the media said "American's question whether Obama is Muslim," and as the message was passed, it was changed into saying that "Obama IS Muslim." Then, rumor spreads.
Besides, I think that a lot of people in this country have a planted prejudice towards the Muslim religion because of 9/11 and a lot of people also don't like Obama for different reasons. So, they associate their prejudice towards the religion and their dislike for Obama and soon 'Obama is Muslim.'
By- Kelsey Wright
The comment above was made by Summer Giauque
ReplyDeleteI believe that this and many others rumors or ideas are brought on not only by misinterpretations of any news channel but also by social networking sites such as facebook and myspace. Someone out there posts something about it and then others who see have that in their head and then the next time they see Obama on TV being friendly to the Muslims they figure it must be true. There are many people who actually rely on Facebook for their news. They don't turn on the TV or open a newspaper but they see things on someones wall. Sure if they are curious enough they might google it to see if it's true, but come on, if you were to google 'Obama is a Muslim', of course you are going to come up with a bunch of sites that might look official saying it's a fact. All of that aside...I'm totally OK with just making things simple and blaming Glen Beck...he's a idiot.
ReplyDeleteBy John Hahn
Personally, I think people should quit worrying about if Obama is Muslim. The American people elected their first "black" president and he's not turning out to be every thing that they want him to be so they are trying to find ways to discredit him, whether it be his religion or his speech tactics, his missing birth certificate or his wife taking luxurious vacations in the middle of this nations worst recession ever.
ReplyDeleteAll we are doing as a nation is making his job harder with all this pressure about stuff that has nothing to do with him doing his job. We elected him, whether we voted for him or not, he is our president and wouldn't it be just peachy if we could all be supportive of a man who is trying to do one of the hardest jobs on earth. No one can make everyone happy all the time, or even some of the time. But how would you fare if you were in his shoes.
I am by no means an Obama advocate, but I do believe in supporting someone while they do their best. And, if we don't like the job he's doing there are these great inalienable rights we all have to vote him out after four years. Who cares if he's a Muslim, there are plenty of very nice Muslim people in the world. Now, if he's associating with those fundamentalists who took down our towers or are killing our solders that's when the American people need to be worried about him and his affiliations. Until then, we only have two more years.
I believe that the misconception of the president’s religion is due both in part to the media and the consumers, but the majority of the blame can be placed on the media hyping the truth.
ReplyDeleteI think this Muslim theory started back in 2007 when Obama was present at a political gathering in Iowa and during a flag salute did not say the pledge or put his hand on his heart. At the time it wasn’t a huge deal and was not highly publicized, but quite a few of the clips on Youtube of this event have been placed on the site in the last few months… not back in 2007. Why?
Most presidents have some rate of decline in popularity while they are in office, but when a lot is expected of a person and they do not IMMEDIATELY give the nation what they promised their popularity spirals downward at a much faster pace. The media will cover the aspects of the campaign that causing the most controversy at the time, for example right now the state of the economy is a HUGE factor in determining our “fondness” of the president. He promised to fix the economy with government bail-outs, but they didn’t work immediately like they were “supposed” to. They didn’t instantly pull our economy out of this recession like we thought they would… so our blame turns to the president because he was the one that initiated these “miracle bail-outs” and he was the one that made the recession worse by putting our nation MORE in debt!
Now that we have some negative view of the Obama for ‘personally ruining our economy,’ why don’t we see what else he does wrong? The media sees that the nation is not as happy with Obama as they were in the beginning, so they jump on the chance for an exciting new story about how Obama is on vacation AGAIN or how his birth certificate is not legit. We see these things on the news and our suspicion only grows. We tune into all the news stations that are bashing Obama just to make our hatred for him grow even more…. Then we see on the internet that redecorated the oval office! Then we hear he is the antichrist! Oh he MUST be a Muslim then!
Yeah, yeah… a lot of Americans have the suspicions. A lot of Americans can’t wait for him to leave office… but just because we think he is a lazy, Muslim antichrist that is trying to ruin America doesn’t mean that he is. Like we viewed in class today the media hypes stories that will get them viewers and get them money. Summer of the shark? Road Rage? Come on. Remember in 6th grade when you hated your math/science teacher? It’s the same thing… the only difference now is that instead of passing notes around and spreading rumors throughout the school the notes have been replaced with news articles and the rumors are being spread around the country instead of a single school. He IS the president and is democratic, so there are definitely going to be people/news sites that don’t like him and spread rumors about him, especially those that oppose democrats. The rumors may be in some part true, but that doesn’t mean he is a lazy, Muslim antichrist and nothing else like he is being portrayed by the media and its consumers.
By Alyssa Ashton
I think people's political ideology and media are interchangable of each other in this circumstance. In a way, they feed off each other in regards to how people form their beliefs. I think that people can unconsiously stereotype, and judging by the presiden't name it's plausible that Obama could be Muslim.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the media may have provoked or played on this judgment, is wasn't necessarily where the idea originated.
I don't either the media or personal political ideology is soley responsible for peoples' misperception about Obama's religion.
By Elise Erlandson
The problem is that for many people, their political ideology is the media. The extent of their research is FOX news or CNN. And obviously if there is such a big misconception of what religion he is, people dont care that much. As president you can really publicly endorse one religion over another. Politics are their religion.
ReplyDeleteby Alan Bodily