Terrified (ebook)

Argumento de Terrified (ebook)

In July 2010, Terry Jones, the pastor of a small fundamentalist church in Florida, announced plans to burn two hundred Qur’ans on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Though he ended up canceling the stunt in the face of widespread public backlash, his threat sparked violent protests across the Muslim world that left at least twenty people dead. In Terrified, Christopher Bail demonstrates how the beliefs of fanatics like Jones are inspired by a rapidly expanding network of anti-Muslim organizations that exert profound influence on American understanding of Islam.

Bail traces how the anti-Muslim narrative of the political fringe has captivated large segments of the American media, government, and general public, validating the views of extremists who argue that the United States is at war with Islam and marginalizing mainstream Muslim-Americans who are uniquely positioned to discredit such claims. Drawing on cultural sociology, social network theory, and social psychology, he shows how anti-Muslim organizations gained visibility in the public sphere, commandeered a sense of legitimacy, and redefined the contours of contemporary debate, shifting it ever outward toward the fringe. Bail illustrates his pioneering theoretical argument through a big-data analysis of more than one hundred organizations struggling to shape public discourse about Islam, tracing their impact on hundreds of thousands of newspaper articles, television transcripts, legislative debates, and social media messages produced since the September 11 attacks. The book also features in-depth interviews with the leaders of these organizations, providing a rare look at how anti-Muslim organizations entered the American mainstream.

"In this groundbreaking and methodologically sophisticated book, Christopher Bail traces the emergence and proliferation of anti-Muslim organizations from the periphery to the mainstream, describing their influence on the media, public policy, and popular culture. Terrified is a must-read."--John L. Esposito, author of The Future of Islam

"Christopher Bail's book is not only a carefully researched, subtly written, and thorough account of anti-Muslim panic, but an astute demonstration of investigative sociology at its best, combining big data, content analysis, interviews, and the history of a whole ecology of sentiment. Terrified is one of the best studies of media impact in many years."--Todd Gitlin, Columbia University

"This book explains how the media’s emphasis on fringe messages and sensational issues has produced a massive shift away from favorable views of Islam to ones where Muslim Americans are viewed as harboring terrorists and supporting harsh Shari’ah law. Terrified is perhaps the most advanced study yet done on what shapes changes in public opinion."--Randall Collins, University of Pennsylvania

"In this important and groundbreaking book, Bail uses a rich combination of data to map the efforts of civil society organizations to shape the popular understanding of Islam in the wake of September 11. Empirically rich and theoretically compelling, Terrified will find a large and receptive audience among those interested in September 11, Islam, and the dynamics of cultural change."--Doug McAdam, Stanford University

"Many Americans are terrified of Islam, or at least of a version of Islam portrayed in the mainstream media. As this pioneering and well-researched book demonstrates, the first step to combat this error is to expose its sources. Terrified is a necessary read for all who care about freedom of speech and protection of minorities as foundational American rights."--Bruce B. Lawrence, author of Shattering the Myth: Islam beyond Violence

"Timely and important, Terrified looks at the rise of anti-Muslim beliefs among Americans and policymakers in the wake of September 11. This book offers one of the most incisive analyses of the role of the media in amplifying some voices while muting others in the public sphere."--Francesca Polletta, University of California, Irvine

"A fascinating exploration of the rising influence of anti- Muslim fringe organizations in the United States after September 11, 2001. . . . This book represents a veritable methodological primer for researchers interested in measuring collective meaning."--Mary-Hunter McDonnell, Administrative Science Quarterly

Winner of the 2016 Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association
Winner of the 2015 ARNOVA Award for Outstanding Book in Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Research
Honorable Mention for the 2016 Charles Tilly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award, Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section of the American Sociological Association

"Bail quite effectively shows how and why anti-Muslim content and ‘experts’ worked their way into positions of prominence, even though they were not well funded or well connected in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Terrified is highly recommended for all levels."--Choice0List of Illustrations ix
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Acronyms xvii
Chapter 1 1
The Cultural Environment of Collective Behavior 1
How Civil Society Organizations Create Cultural Change 5
The Argument 9
Studying Cultural Change with Big Data 11
Outline of the Book 12
Chapter 2 17
From the Slave Trade to the September 11th Attacks 17
Civil Society Organizations and Islam in Early American History 19
The Middle East Conflict 20
The Emergence of the Mainstream 23
The Foundation of the Fringe 28
Chapter 3 33
The September 11th Attacks and the Rise of Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations 33
Shaping Shared Understandings of Islam in the Media 37
Making the News 38
Why Fringe Organizations Fascinate 39
Studying the Evolution of Shared Understandings of Islam in the Mass Media 42
Islam in the American Media, 2001–3 43
The Fearful Fringe 46
Chapter 4 53
The Rip Tide: Mainstream Muslim Organizations Respond 53
Condemning Terrorism 54
Condemning the Fringe 58
Splintering within the Mainstream 61
Chapter 5 67
Fringe Benefits: How Anti-Muslim Organizations Became Mainstream 67
Fringe Networks 68
From the Fringe to the Mainstream 72
How Fringe Organizations Became Authorities about Islam 76
Chapter 6 87
The Return of the Repressed in the Policy Process 87
Casting Mainstream Muslim Organizations as Radicals 89
Marginalizing Mainstream Muslims from the Policy Process 95
Barack Hussein Obama: The 2008 Election 97
Local Politics and the Growth of Anti-Shariʾah Legislation 99
Training Counterterrorism Agents 104
Chapter 7 109
Civil Society Organizations and Public Understandings of Islam 109
The Struggle to Shape American Public Attitudes toward Islam 110
Using Big Data to Study How Civil Society Organizations Shape Public Understandings of Islam 114
Anti-Mosque Activity 121
Chapter 8 131
The Evolution of Cultural Environments 131
Lost in Translation 133
Lessons Learned 134
The Evolution of Cultural Environments 139
Methodological Appendix 141
Sampling Civil Society Organizations and Press Releases 141
Mapping Cultural Environments 145
Measuring Social Psychological Processes 148
Tracing the Evolution of Culture Using Plagiarism Detection Software 149
Alternative Explanations of Cultural Change 151
In-Depth Interviews 156
Notes 159
References 189
Index 213