Birthers of a Nation: How the Obama "Birth Certificate" Issue is Playing Online

Micah L. Sifry | August 2, 2009 - 8:49pm | 1 comment | Email This!

The news that American southerners are the most likely to question whether President Obama is actually a native-born citizen got a lot of attention last Friday, when a Research2000 survey on that question was released by DailyKos. Eleven percent of all Americans apparently do not believe Obama was born in the United States, but 23% of southerners (compared to roughly 5% of people from the other regions of the country) share that belief. I thought it would be interesting to see what various trend-culling tools might add to this picture.

A look at Google Trends is certainly illuminating. The top ten states where people are searching on the phrase "Obama birth certificate" are:
1. Louisiana
2. Mississippi
3. Colorado
4. Oklahoma
5. Alabama
6. Tennessee
7. Arkansas
8. Missouri
9. South Carolina
10. North Carolina

Of those, only Colorado is not part of the American South. Interestingly, Google's tracking suggests that search volume on that phrase was much higher in late October of last year (when the election was days away), while news reference volume is actually higher now. (Facebook's Lexicon tool, which tracks the appearance of words on people's "walls" shows a similar spike in usage of "birth certificate" on November 5th.)

Technorati shows that discussion of Obama's birth certificate is clearly spiking among bloggers:

Keyword popularity across the Blogosphere
This chart illustrates how many times blog posts across the Blogosphere contained the following keywords.


That said, references to the term "birther," which I think is most often used as a derisive way to make fun of the people who are pushing the "Obama-not-a-citizen" myth, are also spiking, in equal scale and pace:

Keyword popularity across the Blogosphere
This chart illustrates how many times blog posts across the Blogosphere contained the following keywords.


Twist, a Twitter app which allows you to track and compare the usage of terms over time, shows a similar trend, with "birther" emerging a bit after the "birth certificate" term rose to prominence:

The states where people are most searching for the term "birther," according to Google Trends, appear to be a mirror image of the southern states obsessing over his birth certificate. In order of rank, they are:
1. District of Columbia
2. Oregon
3. Colorado
4. New York
5. Washington
6. Maryland
7. Texas
8. Indiana
9. Massachusetts
10. Minnesota

With the exception of Texas, these are all states Obama won last November. Clearly, there's a serious split forming (or surfacing) in America. One more disturbing data point: The nearly 3 million views (!!) of a nearly two hour video called the "Obama Deception" ought to be a clear sign that the fear of Obama runs much deeper than many realize. Three million views of a video that long is a sure sign of intense interest, even if it's coming from a relatively narrow sliver of the population.

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Comments

How delightfully run of the mill

by Annan Amos on August 7, 2009 - 1:25pm

Is it surprising in the least that the people that suspect a inauthentic origin of our first African American President are predominantly from the South? (Makes a lot of sense, they don't like the black folks down there and the whole movement seems to lack reasoning - two things that aren't exactly popular down there!) But enough of that.
This whole "birthers" has gotten way out of hand. Granted, there are of course people who believe in UFO's, people who think we really didn't land on the moon, the Illuminati exists...etc. Granted, the majority of the human race in general is made up of superstitious weirdos, who, instead of focusing on their oddball proclivities which are usually easily debunked with the smallest amount of logical thinking, could be doing something more productive, like working, or trying to go out and meet a member of the opposite sex - now there's an interesting point: go around and find the dating activities (or lack thereof) of the kind of whackbags who push these conspiracy theories - or perhaps their level of education, and also drinking/drug habits. Only teetotalers are this insane - get these birthers a beer - or a scotch for that matter - and I'll bet they'll calm down, and drop their goofball mix of stupid and crazy. And maybe, since alcohol lowers inhibitions, they'll go out and...meet a member of the opposite - or same as the case may be - and find something more constructive to do with their time.
Chuck Norris has just jumped on this Bandwagon of Dunces...I guess he doesn't have enough time on his hands either. I can't wait for the NFL season to start so we, as a nation, have something that's at least entertaining to take our attention.