According to Sam Wang, associate professor of microbiology and neuroscience at Princeton and Sandra Aamodt, editor-in-chief of Nature Neuroscience, something known as "source amnesia" can make a person's mind forget whether a quote or an image has a credible source. That is, the way our minds work is that if we hear a phrase enough or see an image enough, our mind forgets how we came to have that knowledge and simply accepts it as truth. In their article, found here <link>, they use the example of knowing the capital of a state but not remembering exactly how the fact was learned. They cite Stanford studies that show that students often regard repeated ideas as true, even though the sources of the ideas were bad ones.

The idea, or image, of the Obama family as being militant and/or participating in a religion that has already been demonized by our media, is being repeated in order to leave a mark on the public's mind. This mark is manipulative and sick. It doesn't matter what the intention was. That intention is not what is left in the public's mind, and the folks at The New Yorker (and anyone else in publishing, advertising or any other media) know that very well.