Most Memorable Mediated Experience

From 1989 to today there have been so many memorable events, good and bad, that have been broadcasted through various media outlets. For me, the most memorable at this point in my life has to be May 1^st, 2011, the day the world found out Osama Bin Laden was dead.

I should take a moment to describe the attached photos. During the celebration on my campus, I ran into some of my friends who said "there is nothing more American than being shirtless on a Jeep waving a flag!" They were excited about the news and were thrilled students were celebrating, so they brought humor in and celebrated in their own way. The second photo was the very first photo I found when I researched the news of Osama's death online.

That Sunday night I was finishing a paper for my Ethnography class, when my mother texted me the message “Osama is dead!” At first, I thought she was joking with me, so I called her to make sure she was not mistaken. She cheerfully told me to turn on the TV, but I did not really have to, everyone I knew was posting it as their Facebook status. Just to be sure, I turned on the TV to watch Giraldo Rivera explain the long process of how Osama was found, shot, and identified. First and foremost, I was excited as a New Yorker that this man who tried to destroy our city was found after ten years of hiding. Then I was proud as an American, knowing that the whole country must have been excited to hear the news. All these thoughts were raging in my head, since I was the only one in my suite at the time. For a little while I could not believe it, this moment was ten years in the making and almost seemed hopeless. I watched Obama’s official press conference, and then texted almost everyone I knew to make sure they heard the news, and like everyone else I made this my Facebook status as well – to spread the word.

At the time I did not think of how I found out and what sources were available for me and everyone else in the world to find this news. After contacting people through two forms of communication I found out my entire campus was on a part of our campus celebrating. I immediately ran out to find 2,000+ students in various forms of American, patriotic clothing. Those who had Jeeps drove by playing American songs and waving large flags along with them. The Lacrosse and Track teams led this celebration, because they had won their respective Centennial Conference Championship earlier that day, and so they found even more excuses to drink the night away. Those of us not on those teams were sober, and were focusing on the Osama news rather than a sports championship. Our campus was joined together, and those who usually did not get along tolerated each other for that night, because we are all Americans and all were affected by September 11^th.

What was amazing to me was the after affect this information had on my tiny campus of about 2,200 students. After the news spread like wildfire globally, students used their own form of media to spread the word or voice their opinion. Some made a YouTube video portraying their thoughts of our campus' ROTC program and how they celebrated, others wrote Op-Ed articles in our college newspaper commenting on the news as well as how our students reacted, and of course everyone communicated with each other via Facebook showing their personal feelings of what Osama's death meant to them, if it did at all.

The other part that amazed me was the Phillies vs. Mets game at Citizen's Bank Park that night, partially because I am a huge baseball nut. I did not realize that I found out later than most of America did, I thought that at around 11pm I was one of the first, but since I go to a school full of Philly fans I heard about the game that night and how it was interrupted with every single fan chanting "USA!" Everybody in that park was able to find out via text messaging, email, an internet app, or a news source app on their phones. Players did not know what was going on at first, until respective coaches on both sides went to check the television in the locker rooms or check their phones to see what was going on. Also, For fans watching the game not knowing what was going on either, luckily the ESPN announcers were able to give them information they needed to understand the sudden joy in Philadelphia.

Everyone who found heard this news heard it through the SMCR form of communication. The Sender – news channels, the Message – Osama is dead, the Channel – first television news, then the rest of the media outlets, and the Receiver – everyone in the world.[1] What people choose to do after they find out a piece of news is up to them, but everyone found out via the same basic concept of how information is sent to an individual. The only difference is which form of media they heard it from. For me, hearing the news that Osama was dead is one of the most important mediated experiences of my life thus far. Something that stayed with me and others during our adolescent years was brought to peace, and I was able to find out about it because of the globally mediated world we live in.

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[1] Hanson, Ralph E. "Chapter 1." Mass Communication: Living in a Media World. Washington, D.C.: CQ, 2008. Print.

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-05-02/news/29521426_1_bin-subways-nypd

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1382724/How-America-Bin-Laden-died-Celebrity-Apprentice-cancelled.html

http://www.billboard.com/column/tweets-of-the-week/osama-bin-laden-dead-music-celebs-react-1005166252.story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIdkHHImLUw&feature=related

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-05-02/sports/29521451_1_al-qaeda-mastermind-bin-ground-zero/2