A single documentary DVD reached 28 million swing-state voters in 2008

Evidence

Weeks before the 2008 presidential elections, a well-organized campaign by the Clarion Fund distributed 28 million copies of the propaganda film, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, to voters in swing states. Obsession was chock-full of images of Arabs and Muslims engaged in violence. And again, Islam was compared to Nazism. The cover of the DVD declared, “The threat of radical Islam is the most important issue facing us today.” It was no coincidence that the timing of the campaign followed months of allegations that Obama is a Muslim. Although the Clarion Fund and its Islamophobic supporters ultimately failed to prevent Obama’s election, labeling him a Muslim as a proxy for anti-Black racism demonstrated the extent to which Muslim identity was treated as a race. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 836 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Only weeks before the presidential election of 2008, 100 newspapers and magazines across the country distributed millions of DVDs of a documentary entitled “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War against the West,” in Sunday editions, and 28 million more DVDs were mailed directly to voters in swing states. The film has also been repeatedly shown on Fox News TV. In lurid and alarming scenes, the film (distributed by an otherwise unknown organization called the Clarion Fund, Inc.) bluntly intercut images of Muslims and Nazis to make the point that they are basically the same. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 30 (#responds-to, via linked claim)

Often missing from these accounts is an attention to the industry’s structure beyond the studio/independent spectrum and what replaced the shuttered Fine Line (2005), New Line (2008), Warner Independent (2008), Picturehouse (2008), Miramax (2010), and Paramount Vantage (2013). Tzioumakis describes this period as an “extensive shakeout” of the American specialty film market, following the 2008 financial crisis, while Alisa Perren suggests that the decline of DVD sales contributed to the “near collapse of the specialty sector” in those years. Though their roots can be traced back to at least 1996, it was in this period around 2008, when the studios abandoned indiewood, that billionaire boutiques sought to fill the gap with findies and financial engineering. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 269 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Twenty-eight million swing-state voters received an anti-Islam DVD in 2008. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 766; A coordinated 28-million-DVD smear campaign targeted swing-state voters in 2008. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 836; Election-season mass DVD distribution delivered anti-Muslim propaganda to swing voters — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 30 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• A coordinated 28-million-DVD smear campaign targeted swing-state voters in 2008. #corroborates (1.00) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 836
• Election-season mass DVD distribution delivered anti-Muslim propaganda to swing voters #responds-to (1.00) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 30
• The 2008 financial crisis plus DVD decline killed the specialty film divisions #complicates (0.80) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 269