The Brookings Institution today released a new extensive poll on American attitudes toward racial and religious diversity in the ten years since 9/11. There are a whole lot of interesting themes in the study, but one thing that stood out was the amazing success of Fox News’ concerted misinformation campaigns on race and religion.
When Brookings asked participants about their views on American Muslims, those who trust Fox News -- along with those who trust public television -- were more likely than those who trust other news sources to “report knowing a lot about the beliefs and practices of Muslims." But Fox News viewers were far more likely than other subgroups or the general public to say “that the values of Islam are at odds with American values” and to agree that “American Muslims want to establish shari’a law in the U.S.”
Those who trust Fox News were also more likely than other groups to agree that “discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.”
Some of this can probably be contributed to self-selection – those who think that Muslims want to establish Sharia law and that white people face greater discrimination than minorities are more likely to want to watch news that affirms their views. But what Fox News does so well is to present its audience with a closed world of right-wing “facts” – on Muslims, on race, on economics – and repeat those "facts" over and over until they seem to be unquestionable truths. It’s no wonder, then, that Fox News viewers were the most likely to report being Islam experts, while having wildly off-base views on American Muslims.
For more on how Fox News and other right-wing media outlets have succeeded in making up and popularizing their own “facts” on American Muslims, check out PFAW’s report The Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism.