Take Two for December 6, 2012

Study finds fringe activists have big influence on anti-Muslim sentiment in media

Take Two | December 6th, 2012, 9:00am

ROMEO GACAD/AFP/Getty Images

Indonesian student of international relations Anisa Widya Lestari, (C), 20, holds a US flag as visitors watch US presidential elections at the poll monitoring center set up by the US embassy in Jakarta on November 7, 2012. Surveys indicate Indonesia the world's most populous Muslim country favors President Barack Obama who spent four years of his childhood in Jakarta over Republican rival Mitt Romney.

A new study by the American Sociological Review finds that when it comes to a discussing American Muslims, fringe activists dominate the conversation in the media, and that leads to a predominance of anti-Muslim stories.

Christopher Bail, a sociologist who studies the media at the University of North Carolina and University of Michigan, joins the show to discuss the implications of this research.