9/11 and the Media

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18hkDOQB6h4&feature=player_embedded

After almost ten years, the tragic events of 9/11 continue to haunt the lives of many Americans as they recount the videos, images, and news stories that were available to them almost immediately after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. I was only thirteen, and a Freshman in an all-girl Catholic high school in Queens. It was only the second day of class and I remember I was leaving French class and headed to the library for a free period, surrounded by girls that I had not spoken to let alone made friends with, when the announcement was delivered through the halls to report back to our homerooms until further instructions were given. A girl that was sitting in the library next to me leaned in and whispered that she thinks a plane crashed into the world Trade Center - that her mother had called her moments before and told her what was happening.

Before panic began to spread throughout the school's hallways, a group of us ran to the computer to search on the web, typing in World Trade Center plane crash. By the time the page opened, there was a live footage of the second plane hitting the South tower. It was an unforgettable image. All of us gasped and stood closer to each other, some crying while others panicked keeping in my family and friends that worked in the World Trade Center as well as in the area. And even though our school was in Queens, a whole different borough, we were able to see almost everything - the debris falling, the reactions on people's faces. It was heartbreaking.

Thinking about the way that news was communicated that day, it makes me think about the types of communication that was available to us that day. Hanson defines interpersonal communication as communication, either intentional or accidental, between two people that is verbal or nonverbal. This was the kind of communication between the mother and daughter, and the student to me. We were communicating information about the event to one another. The announcement that the school was finally given when the news was out would be considered group communication. But when we realized how the footage about the event was mass communicated, that is, when an individual or institution uses technology to send a message to a large, mixed audience, most of whose members are not known to the sender, according to Hanson, we knew that almost everyone had access to the information about 9/11, even teens as young as us.

Watching the planes hit, the video footage replaying in front of our innocent faces, we were all taken back with disbelief. By then, panic took over the entire school. I would learn later that family members of students were injured and killed, and that my uncle was present, photographing and taking videos of the second plane hitting - the same image I watched from my school library.

Viewing and learning details of that event directly through the Internet completely shaped my experience. By viewing those images and videos, I was able to feel the complete impact and seriousness and sadness surrounding the events of that day. The mass media that was available to me as well as the other students and faculty made it possible to inform us. It would not have been the same effect if I had been the one who received the phone call about it; although, it would have still struck me painful and disconcerting.

This goes back to Baran's discussion about culture and the way culture is constructed and maintained through communication. After 9/11, a new meaning of being an American emerged where we all shared a strong national culture, supporting each other through the losses and grief. However, the co-culture of Muslim Americans were challenged, as Baran points out, since their culture was seen to communicate disloyalty to those in the United States, dividing these cultures as a result of the way it was socially constructed and maintained through communication. The news that followed 9/11, the news coverage and the headlines of papers, reported several things about Arab Americans that shaped the way Americans thought and felt toward the bounded culture. In this way, media and culture are directly related. Even going back to the computer in the school library that day, all of us were brought to the site of 9/11, as if we were there - mourning, uniting, and even dividing as a culture as a result of media.