I agree that the accounts we are given are impoverished. This script — the problem of free speech posed by the clash of civilizations — does threaten to privilege the strategically populist rhetorical strategies (either in the mode of the defense of Islam or of free speech) of political and religious leaders in the U.S., say, and the Middle East, at the expense of the so-called “masses” or “crowds” associated with these apparently spontaneous events.

In a way that surely does not lead to a better grasp of the situation, we are left with vague attributions about the “Muslim street” and similarly broad generalizations. This narrative frame, then, tends to impede our access to a more nuanced appreciation of the meanings attributed by people when participating in such demonstrations. It reminds me of some of the good work by Stanley Tambiah and others to move beyond a conception of rudderless “crowds” in understanding the violence associated with Hindu-Muslim riots in India.

(I posted this comment over at the CPD site as well)

Thank you for continuing the conversation, and taking it in a new direction. Your recommendation that we are in “dire need of a sharper … appreciation of how compelling ideas … travel through” social networks makes so much sense in light of the recent demonstrations in Muslim majority countries that were putatively “about” a video ridiculing Muhammad. They engaged various networks which presumably could all be mapped — on- and offline social networks within and across countries had a hand in the viral spread of the demonstrations, which is how they kept being presented in our mainstream news. And of course, participants themselves describe their own participation as related to the insult to Islam represented by the video.

But that account seems so impoverished. One of my students astutely pointed out the other day that many demonstrators couldn’t possibly have seen the video. And the circumstances of the different countries, cultures, and people involved can’t possibly be that simple or that unified, or even that conscious to all participants. Which leads me to wonder about the usefulness of strategic communication/ public diplomacy responses that treat the events as representing a cultural consensus by treating them as only functions of a clash of the value of sacred values vs. free speech values. A better look at the specific conditions and histories and investments in political narratives across these networks, as you say, might generate very different decisions about how to focus PD activities over the long term in specific areas.