I want to add this article from the New Yorker a couple weeks ago to our ongoing discussion of global Muslim issues. Lawrence Wright has an interesting perspective on on the Mohammed cartoons, Park 51 and America's Muslim population. He highlights the way in which both the cartoon phenomenon and the Park 51 debate developed as situations in which one politically motivated person used certain--otherwise relatively innocuous occurrences--to draw media attention to themselves and their issues. Essentially, Wright argues that neither of these conflicts would have had the social magnitude that they did had not "fearmongering and slander serve[d] as the basis of an argument that cannot rely on facts to make its case." This article portrays both phenomena as extreme examples of agenda setting by people whose opinions were originally in a minority and who managed, through manipulation of different media outlets and group leaders, to make their issues the concern of an outspoken majority.
Another example of this technique that is salient to the discussion is in the Packer article about social scientists and the war on terror. Packer points out that Bin Laden's inclusion of global warming in a list of complaints against America, was a ploy to align his cause with that of the Democratic Party in America in order to assist in getting Bush re-elected, because Bin Laden felt that "Bush's strategy in the war on terror was sustaining his own global importance." These examples illustrate the manner in which people use sensationalism and fear in order to simply stay in the media spotlight, an important strategy in the struggle to appropriate and maintain social power. They also show how the material media consumers are asked to interpret as current affairs presented at face value is often blatant manipulation of public opinion by someone with a personal political agenda.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/09/20/100920taco_talk_wright
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