The Fringe Effect and Representing Islam
islawmix contributor Sarah Moawad sits down with sociologist Christopher Bail, author of "The Fringe Effect: Civil Society Organizations and the Evolution of Public Discourse about Islam," to discuss the study and its lessons for journalists and others interested in the coverage of Islam and Muslims in the news.
islawmix: You recently published a study entitled "The Fringe Effect: Civil Society Organizations and the Evolution of Public Discourse about Islam." Could you tell us a bit about the purpose and goal of the study?
The goal of the study was to try to track basically which types of groups were shaping media discourse about Islam. These are not only Muslim advocacy groups such as Council on American-Islamic Relations or Muslim Public Affairs Council, but also a variety of non-Muslim groups. These range from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union to groups like the Middle East Forum and Center for Security Policy. And the goal is really to see not only who gets into the media but who really influences the way that the media talks about Islam. As I think anybody who has observed the situation in the last few decades realizes, there are a number of groups who claim to speak on behalf of all Muslims. Just like with any other religion, however, no group can really uniquely claim to speak on behalf of all Muslims. That was the motivation for the study.
islawmix: Your study revealed that certain civil society organizations, which you describe as "fringe" groups, carry a disproportionate amount of weight in shaping the mainstream media discourse about Islam due to deliberate editorial decisions that emphasize negative messages about Islam. This is happening despite a larger amount of "pro-Muslim" discourse coming from organizations like interfaith and advocacy groups. Who are these fringe groups, and what are the editorial decisions that give them a platform?
As mentioned, examples of the fringe groups would be the Middle East Forum, Center for Security Policy, Stop the Islamization of America. Some of them are anti-Muslim in their rhetoric and some are less so. A group such as the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy has, I think, a kind of borderline anti-Muslim rhetoric whereas groups like Society of Americans for National Existence have extremely anti-Muslim rhetoric. The distinction I make [between such groups] in the paper is [based on] whether the argument [being made] entails that all Muslims have the potential to become violent radicals or not.
I'm not sure they [the editorial decisions emphasizing negative messages about Islam] are deliberate. I do not think this is purely a case of media sensationalism and the media just trying to sell bad news. It is partly just a fundamental human process; if you look at basic social psychology, we know that negative emotions have a priming effect on our attention. An emotional message will always focus attention, particularly our collective attention, more than a non-emotional message, and institutions like the mass media amplify this emotional bias.
What I call the Fringe Effect is the kind of media magic that led to the fringe organizations becoming perceived as being mainstream, and really marginalizing the genuinely mainstream Muslim organizations who are doing things like condemning terrorism and so on and so forth. So I think it wasn't necessarily a purely calculated strategic decision on the part of journalists, but partly an innate human tendency and partly just a lack of other credible voices.
islawmix: In your opinion, why have such fringe groups received the lion's share of attention in the mass media? Could you talk a little more about this appeal to negative emotions, like fear and anger?
Again, these are kind of basic human tendencies. If you look at classic psychology, even going back as far as say William James, the great pragmatist philosopher, he posed this question that i think revolutionized a lot of psychology: "If a hiker encounters a bear in the woods, does he run because of the bear or does he run because he's scared?" And the answer is he runs because he's scared – he doesn't realize he's scared until he realizes he's running. In other words, our bodies have a primordial physiological reaction to our environment before we even know what we're looking at. And there's aggregate effect to that too – not only are we guided by our emotions, but then we look for evidence that confirms our emotions. So if we're primed with negative sentiments or fear of Muslims, then we look for evidence that confirms that, and anyone who types the term "jihad" into Google will be immediately bombarded with thousands of websites which report to demonstrate how evil and wicked the religion is.
The visibility that these fringe organizations gained through emotional appeals not only enabled them to identify each other and forge alliances with each other, but also enabled them to forge inter-organizational networks with powerful mainstream conservative organizations. These groups include the American Enterprise Institute, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Heritage Foundation as well as others. This is where you really see this gravitational pull that the fringe can exert on the mainstream. This isn't just unique to Islam; you could argue the Tea Party has a very similar fringe effect on discourse about debt and the economy.
islawmix: What factors determine which narrative will prevail (i.e., which organizations will be most successful) in shaping the media discourse about Islam? For example, the media discourse over the last few years has involved the idea of "creeping shari'a," or conspiracy theories, as well as discussions of Islam as a foreign religion, or a religion that oppresses women.
There's this effect of emotion. But the effect of emotion not only focuses attention on the fringe, and it's not that mainstream organizations don't get into the media. Organizations like CAIR got quite a bit of media coverage in the ten years following the September 11th attacks. The problem is that, generally, CAIR did not receive media attention for positive messages which celebrate Islam as a religion of peace, even though they made many of those. They received attention when they were attacking the fringe. They received attention when they were angrily denouncing Daniel Pipes as a candidate for the United States Institute of Peace. And the effect that this had is [that] the public on [the] one hand sees fringe organizations accusing Muslims of secretly condoning terrorism, and these fringe organizations cited evidence for this fact that no major Muslim organizations condemned terrorism in the media (due to the lack of emotions in their statements). But then they go even further, and say "Look, not only have they not condemned terrorism, but they've invented this whole narrative of Islamophobia, and look how angry Muslims get about you attacking Islam but not about terrorism itself."
From there, the narrative kind of coheres: it's not only that Muslims are secretly terrorists, but they're hiding behind a veil of political correctness. And that's where the whole sharia nonsense came from; it was simply groups saying "If you look at what CAIR says, you'll never see them condemn Hamas, and you'll never see them do this. But you will see them get really angry every time a Muslim isn't allowed to have a prayer hall." And CAIR does do that, that's their job; they're an advocacy group. One problem with that is that it kind of validates the narrative of the fringe organizations that Muslims are primarily concerned about protecting the integrity of their religion, don't want to integrate [and] never condemn terrorism.
I think…mainstream Muslim organizations [will soon] realize that they're not going to win this positive game, it just doesn't sell. And when it does make it into the media, which it does occasionally, it doesn't resonate quite as much. You may have a little bit of coverage, but it doesn't go to another network; it doesn't stick in people's minds. Your local imam condemning a terrorist attack in Iraq is just never going to compete with the fringe organization that says terrorists have secretly infiltrated US universities and the money you're investing in your 401K is supporting Al-Qaeda.
islawmix: How has social media played into this narrative construction as well as picking and choosing representation?
We're now entering the era of social media, and the media for all its faults, I think occasionally does a good job of gate-keeping, keeping the craziest people off the airwaves. But what we saw with Terry Jones and with "The Innocence of Muslims", this soft mark film, is that there are no gatekeepers on the internet, and anyone who can upload a youtube video could potentially start a worldwide riot. That's going to be a really big problem, and one that I don't see an obvious solution to. One is to try to marginalize these people as much as possible and not to buy into that, not to react to it the way that certain organizations have done. This works on a few different levels, too. Because we all rely on the media to define reality for us, most people are appalled by the amount of anti-Muslim sentiment in the media, but, if my analysis is correct and these people just represent fringe elements of society, then we're actually overreacting. And that has important implications for the extent of Islamophobia. Now, whether or not their success has in turn created Islamophobia is a separate question, and I'm increasingly worried about that. On the other hand, if you think about the situation of groups like MPAC, CAIR, ISNA, there are great consequences to not saying anything as well. If we just let Frank Gaffney and Daniel Pipes go on and on about who Muslim Americans are, and there's no countervailing message, then that's dangerous too. It's really a dilemma.
islawmix: What are some of the results or consequences of this lopsided media coverage?
I think most of them aren't good. Because so many people rely upon the media for information, these representations of Islam are disproportionately represented in the media have pretty far-reaching consequences. After September 11th, there was actually a modest increase in favorable public opinion towards Muslims, and Muslim Americans in particular. And pretty much every year since there's been a steady growth in anti-Muslim sentiment. So certainly, public opinion alone is a big issue, to the extent that we should care about Muslims feeling accepted and welcomed and integrated; they've been here as long as anyone else in the history of the United States.
Another dangerous [consequence] is regarding policy implications. You look at the Lieberman hearings or the King hearings, and admittedly some of this is political theater, but when I talk to mainstream Muslim organizations, many of them say the FBI has been calling [them] more. This is in part because relationships have deteriorated between the community and the government, but also because of fringe activists being in positions of power, at the Pentagon, training local police. Additionally, at these hearings the only group that was represented at either was MPAC, which is a fine organization, but just that there were so few Muslim voices involved in hearings about Muslim Americans was just absurd. I think this is because politicians react to civil society organizations only if and as they appear in the media.
islawmix: How can journalists learn from your research, and what can they do to counteract the distortions and biases of selective journalism, in favor of a more balanced approach?
I think [journalists] are getting much better. After 9/11, most people were, I think like me, in that they knew next to nothing about Islam, they knew next to nothing about Muslim American organizations, they couldn't differentiate apples from oranges. It was just kind of a winnowing out and trying to get down to the truth, and so I think a lot of journalists made honest mistakes in an attempt to provide all sides of the story, and they just happened to be providing a very small window of what was going on. So, I don't necessarily blame journalists, in fact I kind of sympathize with many of them who are forced to become experts on Middle East politics on one week's notice.
There have been a variety of attempts by the Society of Professional Journalists, for example, and I know CAIR has does trainings at FOX News. There have been various memos sent out on use of the term "Islamist" or "Jihad". Sadly, I think those have had very little resonance – even NPR still uses the terms "Islamist" and "Islamic terrorist", and I think that's unfortunate. I think partly it's just a matter of learning to play the game.
islawmix: And what can Muslim groups do to ensure that their voices are heard?
As I mentioned before, the positive message will work in certain contexts. I think it works offline…it maybe works in real life more often than in the media; in the media it's just not working. Groups need to get a little more creative in terms of condemning terrorism more strongly and more forcefully when it happens.As part of my research I've interviewed leaders of many Muslim organizations and fringe organizations as well, and [the] one thing I consistently hear is "I condemn terrorism everyday. I condemn terrorism so much that I do it in my sleep." But as long as people aren't hearing it or seeing it, it has to continue to happen.
Often people say that Muslim Americans just haven't developed the organizational capacity to protect their reputation, but in part of my book I actually spent about fifty pages detailing the history of Muslim American organizations: this is not a new phenomenon. Yes, groups like CAIR have only been around since 1994, MPAC since 1993. But Muslim Students Associations have been around since 1962 and we've had groups [since] 1908 in Chicago. American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has been around forever [as well as] ISNA–these are not brand new organizations.
I do think journalists could be more careful in how they write stories. On the other hand, I think the organizations themselves have to realize that it's inevitable that journalists will come to them with biases, and you can't always correct all of them. You need to think very strategically about which message you want to get out, and stick to your message…FOX News aside, I do think there's good journalism being done in a variety of places – the Washington Post has had some good articles and Salon has some good people doing good work, Huffington Post. I'm optimistic in that sense.
islawmix: Any last thoughts?
There's a real tendency among Muslim American organizations to preach to the choir. There's plenty of people that agree – I'm easily convinced of the message of a lot of Muslim groups, I have a lot of sympathy after studying the situation for so long. But the median center-right conservative who watches FOX News or reads Washington Times or listens to Rush Limbaugh – my real worry is that they're not being reached. It's scary to go on there, because the whole game is set up so that you fail. I even interviewed one Muslim leader at one point who said that he thought that the producer of FOX News was actually turning up and down his microphone strategically to cut him off so that he couldn't finish his point. But I think getting smart about it is important; what happens if you don't go? What conversation unfolds if you're not represented? That's a scary thing too.
Americans, in our roots, in our very character have deep respect for religious diversity, and that's something that can be primed and something that can be exploited as these groups try to repair their collective identity in the media. There's a lot of great young leaders and new voices in the Muslim community. There [are] certainly reasons to be optimistic. I think the proof ultimately will be if Muslim Americans continue to be, and I think they will be, very peaceful, well-integrated and not radicalized.
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