Shah, Anup. “War on Terror.” Global Issues, Updated: 15 Apr. 2007. Accessed: 13 Jan. 2011.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
9/11
From Hepp and Couldry’s analysis, they suggest that media events collaborate mass communication and essentially broadcast the news to a new level. Of the 21st century, I cannot ignore the events of 9/11 and not have that be the top media event to date. Though there have been many events that have followed (Iraq, extreme weather from Haiti to Midwestern tornadoes, shootings) that can seriously qualify for a global media event, 9/11 is atop my list for many reasons. First, though social outlets such as Facebook and Twitter hadn’t been invented yet, in 2001 we were on a brink of a technology boom. Computers and televisions were becoming flat, cell phones were moving from black and white to color, and the internet was slowly moving from all dial-up to wireless. At the moment of the attack, you had thousands of people of the streets, thousands of people in surrounding buildings, just simply thousands of people with a front row seat, and a cell phone. Obviously there were cameras rolling, but normal people took some of the most intimate images of the attack. This alone sent the world into a media frenzy. For the first time, media outlets were reaching out to the public for some of the first images. Beyond being one of the first events that the public could really have an effect on because of the technology, 9/11 was just a catastrophic event, which made it global. Lastly, why this event tops my 21st century list is because of what it resulted in. “The terrible events of September 11 saw the considerable quieting of what was until then growing domestic and international criticism of the Bush Administration. The September 11 events resulted in a “war on terror.”
Shah, Anup. “War on Terror.” Global Issues, Updated: 15 Apr. 2007. Accessed: 13 Jan. 2011.
Shah, Anup. “War on Terror.” Global Issues, Updated: 15 Apr. 2007. Accessed: 13 Jan. 2011.
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It's interesting to look back on the year 2001 and see how much technology has grown since then, and how its changed the media. But you brought up a great point when you said we were on the verge of a technology boom at the time. I also found it interesting that for the first time the media reached out to the public for pictures and video footage of the incident. Of course, today pictures and videos get around much faster through social networks and YouTube.
ReplyDeleteI had never though about that event in this instance. This is a great view point. I never realized how much our culture did change technology wise in 2001. It is hard to believe that there was a day without high speed or wireless Internet because we use it so much in the world today. I had dial up Internet for the longest time before my mom moved to high speed, she didn't really believe it was going to make a difference but now that we have it she loves it because it makes a lot more of a difference than dial up. The advances that were made in 2001 in the communication front is amazing. Almost unbelievable that we have come such a long way in the mass communication lndustry.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to think about a time when videos could not be taken on cell phones! I remember that day when I was watching the news they would play over and over people's cell phone videos and just watching the towers being hit and collapse and hearing the horror in the filmer's voice was so surreal I could not believe that someone was actually watching this attack first hand. September 11th definitely set a precedent for media outlets to use the public's videos/photos for a first hand account of events, which I had never thought about before.
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