“Blood libel”: How language evolves and spreads within online worlds

[Joanne98]

By C.W. Anderson / today / 2 p.m. When Sarah Palin used the term “blood libel” to describe purported attacks on her and the Tea Party movement in the wake of Saturday’s tragic shooting in Tucson, some were left wondering why the former governor would use a phrase historically associated with anti-Semitism.

But, whatever the merits or demerits of Palin’s usage, it didn’t come out of nowhere. And that alone is a useful reminder that the Internet’s a big, diverse place, stocked with ecosystems, subcultures, and communities that each bring their own assumptions about language. For journalists (or anyone), it can be easy to think that your little corner of the Internet is representative of the big picture. It’s probably not.

The use of “blood libel” may seem inexplicable — that is, until you go back and look at how the word was used in particular digital media circles during the days since the Tucson shooting. The Lab has written previously about Internet memes, how ideas tend to move more like heartbeats than viruses through the web’s extremities. And the path “blood libel” took — while, on the one hand, it suggests the social divisions that can live online — also offers some insight into the trip memes take as they bubble up into the consciousness of the mass media.

With a bit of Google News sleuthing, supplemented by a trip to the Lexis-Nexis archive, it appears that the term “blood libel,” pre-Palin, was adopted by some conservative commentators in the immediate aftermath of the Tucson assassination attempt.

http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/01/blood-libel-how-language-evolves-and-spreads-within-online-worlds/


It started here with this guy.

Adam Graham column

Adam Graham was Montana State Coordinator for the Alan Keyes campaign in 2000, and in 2004 was a candidate for the Republican nomination for the Idaho State House. He and his wife live in Boise, Idaho. Graham writes about U.S. and Idaho politics on his blog at http://adamsweb.us/blog. Graham hosts "The Truth and Hope Report," a Political Podcast focusing on important stories you need to know about. You can subscribe to his podcast at http://www.truthandhope.2truth.com

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/graham

And this article January 9th


The greatest consequence is that it makes our political discourse even coarser. When someone on the left says that the Tea Party movement is responsible for the shooting in Tucson, they are leveling the political equivalent of a blood libel that blames an entire political movement for the actions of a person who in all likelihood had no connection to the movement.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/graham/110109

Naturally it came from the Christian right.

Have you ever noticed this method they have of taking things over by stealing idenities. It's like what they're doing to the Constitution or the Founding Fathers. They slowing re-write the history then absorb the targets by becoming them. Then they finish them off by declaring they never existed. "It's always been us."

"The Founding fathers were Christian" "This is a Christian nation"

They did this with the ground zero mosque too. They accused Islam of "replacement" by conquering sacred ground. I guess they would know all about that.

[Joanne98]

1. They re-invent everything.

That's a chart from re-new America forum.

When I went to school the chart went from Communism to Fascism.

It's amazing how much work they've put into deception. This has to be a long term project.

[Democracyinkind]

2. I've never seen a chart that has made less sense. Truly frightening...

[SharonAnn]

3. Fascism and Nazism are extreme left-wing political groups? What drivel!