Did People Really Think President Obama was a Muslim?
March 10, 2010 by blackgirlgrown
Filed under obama, religion
Some did, and unfortunately the media hasn’t been able to cut through the lies.
Approximately 20 percent of Americans believed that then-Senator Barack Obama was a Muslim during the 2008 presidential campaign despite news stories and fact-checking Web sites that attempted to debunk the rumor. Professor Barry Hollander in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia analyzed data from a survey of more than 2,400 people taken at three points during the campaign to see if exposure to news media helped correct misperceptions about Obama’s faith.
Exposure to news media has long been thought to help create a more informed and politically educated citizenry, but a new University of Georgia study finds that media exposure did little to correct a significant misperception during the most recent presidential campaign.
Because the survey asked the same questions of the same people in October, September and November of 2008, Hollander was able to explore how people’s beliefs changed over time. The percentage of respondents who believed that Obama was Muslim stayed roughly the same over the study period, shifting from 20.2 percent in September to 19.7 percent in November.
Hollander, whose study will appear in the Journal of Media and Religion, explained that his findings are consistent with psychological studies on selective memory that show that people tend to discount facts that are inconsistent with their preexisting beliefs. People are also less likely to remember information that conflicts with their beliefs.
Bottom line: People believe what they want to believe.
