Group Members:  Farva Ashraf  Faryal Abbas  Fatima Shehzad  Sana Shahzad  Anam Amir

 An aggregate of the individual views, attitudes, and beliefs about a particular topic, expressed by a significant proportion of a community.  American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley defined public opinion in 1918 as “a process of interaction and mutual influence rather than a state of broad agreement.”  American political scientist V.O. Key defined public opinion in 1961 as “opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to heed.”

 One perspective holds that individual opinions matter; therefore, the opinions of the majority should be weighed more heavily than opinions of the minority when leaders make decisions.  A contrasting view maintains that public opinion is controlled by organized groups, government leaders, and media elites.  The influence of public opinion is not restricted to politics and elections. It is a powerful force in many other spheres, such as culture, fashion, literature and the arts, consumer spending, and marketing and public relations.

 Reticular activating system RAS-a structure in the brain responsible for orientation and attention.  Naturally orient to information or ideas that we are invested in. Eg our names, govt. and problems.  altering media applications may be found in video games, iPods, YouTube.

 “multimodel learning”-people are more likely to learn and retain information when it is presented in multiple modalities such as written (visual) and aural (auditory) at the same time. Eg. Good publicity. McDonalds.  Culturalist approach-Perception and memory.

 People remember narratives rather than facts.  Emotional appeals adv.  Familiarity Fosters Likeability-exposure.  More people-More attention  some people use broadcast and Internet media as a mental and emotional retreat.

 Media manipulation currently shapes everything you read, hear and watch online. Everything  The media sometimes distort critical facts  omit vital stories  work hand in hand with the military- industrial complex to keep their secrets safe  promote greedy and manipulative corporate agenda.

 Public opinion is based on agenda setting and media framing  Media sets the publics agenda  Manipulating peoples thoughts  Most often a view is supported by some media houses and is publicized on social media networks then that view becomes public view irrespective of the truth.

 Elite opinion leaders who access and publish public opinions have high degrees of social influence or institutional power  Statistics that represent and measure opinions hence the most dominant one prevailing  How opinions match up to those in social and media environments and the most popular agenda becomes a public opinion

HISTORY OF WORLD CHANGED

What Happened? How Media covered this incident? What Public Opinion was set about Muslims?

REACTION AFTER 9/11

Following September 11, 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported a 1,700 percent increase of hate crimes against Muslim Americans between 2000 to 2001 (Anderson, 2002). Muslim Americans faced an upsurge in negative stereotypes expressed by the larger society The FBI continues to closely monitor Muslim communities at mosques. Politicians have also added fuel to the fire of anti-Islam sentiments in the United States Today, many American Muslims continue to be victims of “Islamophobia”, or the “fear of Muslims.”