Barack Obama: Muslim? No.

[Joanne98]

Barack Obama: Muslim? No.
by Natasha Chart, Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 09:24:44 AM EST

I went to an event last week where a couple representatives from the presidential campaigns were talking about their search engine marketing strategies. One of the things that came up was that "barack obama muslim" is a very popular search.

If you put that into Google now, which I tried several times over the weekend, you get a few news stories on the front page of results, along with pages from right wing sites that are premised on inflammatory lies. Despite repeated debunkings, Republicans have engaged in deliberate strategy of spreading lies about Obama that play into people's fears, in spite of the fact that it's well known that Obama is Christian, not Muslim. Much has been made of the fact that his middle name is Hussein, as if there weren't a long tradition of Semitic names and words in common use in the US. Outrageous religious bigotry is still okay if it's directed towards the 'proper' people, after all.

Going deeper into the search results for "barack obama muslim" reveals that they're packed deep with opposition pages discussing the Very Serious Issue of Barack Obama's faith. It reminds me of the WA-08 race in 2006, where the local liberal blogs, including the one among us that fed into Google News, used most candidate-related posts to talk about our candidate, Darcy Burner. The conservative blogs, including the one that fed into Google News, talked not only about their candidate, Dave Reichert, but about ours.

In fact, they talked about our candidate a lot. Searches for Dave Reichert in Google News at the time turned up regular news stories and right wing blog results. Searches for Darcy Burner in Google News turned up regular news, liberal blog results, and a few more conservative blog results than liberal ones.

While I certainly don't want (standard and necessary disclaimer) to tell people what to write about on their blogs, it has an impact on what information is available to the public because of blogs' disproportionate impact on search results. Especially in an age when nearly half of adults get their news online and are increasingly dissatisfied with establishment news outlets. This is a tremendous opportunity for blogs to increase our audience share, but it also suggests challenges for progressives.

When the general election is in full swing, who's going to be talking to the public the most about John McCain or the Democratic nominee? If the nominee is Barack Obama, the ridiculous rumors about his 'muslim ties' (you mean, like getting to first base with a Saudi prince?) can't be wished away, or the Internet-going public will be treated to a very tilted conversation.

Update <2008-3-10 12:17:22 by Natasha Chart>: I've had requests to change the title of this post. While it shouldn't be too hard to figure out why I put it up as was, request granted.
http://www.mydd.com/

[Deep13]

1. So he's STILL not a Muslim?

I'm starting to think he has no intention of becoming one.:-(



:evilgrin:

[thereismore]

2. As far as I know... nt