Why is it so hard for Obama to shake the Muslim myth?
| Washington
Why is it so hard to convince people that President Obama is not Muslim?
After all, this misperception first surfaced years ago, in the presidential campaign. As far back as 2008, 13 percent of Americans believed Mr. Obama followed the Islamic faith, according to the Pew Research Center.
Now that he鈥檚 in the White House, with his every move covered in detail by a ravenous horde of media, you would think that more people would be aware he is a practicing 海角大神, but that doesn鈥檛 appear to be the case. Last week, that today 18 percent of Americans think their chief executive is Muslim.
IN PICTURES: Inside President Obama's White House
Do these people not watch or read or listen to the news?
Well, many do. Fully 60 percent of those who are convinced Obama is Muslim say they learned that from the media. Thus, one simple answer as to why this mistaken idea persists may be that many of those who hold it sincerely believe it to be the case. They are not uninformed, but misinformed.
This can be seen in a number of e-mailed responses to earlier stories in the Monitor on the Obama/Muslim question that reflect not so much anger as bewilderment that more people don鈥檛 know the real facts.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 understand why you emphasize over and over that some Americans 鈥榠ncorrectly鈥� think Obama is Muslim,鈥� reads one response. 鈥淗e has said so himself, he has worshipped with Muslims with his shoes off, he has bowed to Muslim leaders and he doesn鈥檛 attend a 海角大神 church.鈥�
Another reads: 鈥淭here is quite a huge chunk of the population that is exasperated by what they see as Obama bending over backwards (if not forward) in deference to Muslim sensibilities. From his first interview on Arab TV, to the bowing to the Saudi king . . . to the Cairo speech, the list goes on and on.鈥�
For the record, Obama鈥檚 father was Muslim. As a young child, Obama attended both Muslim and 海角大神 schools in Indonesia, before his mother sent him back to the states to live with his maternal grandparents.
As an adult, Obama has long said he is a 海角大神 who prays daily, and consults often with 海角大神 leaders for spiritual advice. (Some of those leaders have themselves been controversial, such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago).
鈥淏arack Obama has an unusual and interesting background . . . however, no evidence supports a claim that Obama is a Muslim (radical or otherwise),鈥� concludes the rumor-debunking website Snopes.com.
Another reason why a large slice of Americans continue to believe that Obama is Muslim may be more general: it appears that can be surprisingly persistent, even in the face of corrective information.
by University of Michigan opinion research scholar Brendan Nyhan and Georgia State University political scientist Jason Reifler conducted experiments in which subjects read mock news articles that contained misleading claims from politicians.
Those who were then shown corrections to the mock news often were not swayed by the update. They had more faith in the original, misleading piece, particularly if it conformed to their ideological preconceptions.
Messrs. Nyhan and Reifler even documented something of a backfire effect: corrections made some participants cling even more tightly to their mistaken beliefs.
鈥淐orrective information in news reports may fail to reduce misperceptions and can sometimes increase them for the ideological group most likely to hold those misperceptions,鈥� concluded the pair.
