The summer before I returned to high school as a graduating Senior in Central Pennsylvania, my school’s administration conveniently delved into a complete and total skeletal-bare-bones-gutting-style renovation of every nook and cranny of the entire school. As, of course, such a new venture takes much more time than just the barely three summer months reserved for vacation, the unhappiness could not in any way be measured when myself and the rest of the student body appeared on campus to begrudgingly start another year of torture. The hallways became what could only be described as disturbing replications of cattle chutes, the floors were dusty concrete and some teachers actually had to wheel their materials around from room to room on small carts.

One of the first things everyone realized was that all of the televisions affixed to one of either two corners in the front of each room were disconnected. Some had even been completely removed. Great, no movies this year. My senior year. Thanks, Susquenita School District. Not that the student run morning announcement show was that fabulous or anything (I had actually been in A.V. Club the two years prior to my Senior year and dropped out for reasons of cynicism), but at least it was something in the presence of the classroom other than the horribly boring and many times under-qualified teachers. Generally, up until that year, we also watched an adolescent geared daily news show called simply “Channel 1” (the birthplace of both Lisa Ling and Anderson Cooper’s careers alike).

While this new adjustment was clearly annoying to us all (teachers included), there quickly befell a date in time upon us all where the slight inconvenience of not having access to a television signal created even more of a chaotic situation than I ever could have imagined. As terrifying and confusing as September 11^th was for everyone watching in New York City, in the country, even in the world, the experience of NOT ACTUALLY BEING ABLE TO SEE WHAT WAS HAPPENING ON THE NEWS became an insane mess throughout the entire high school building. Rumors, gossip, chattering, “Well I heard that…” “No, no, it’s actually…” “Did you HEAR?!” Things became so confusing that people were just wandering around the hallways talking and saying things that were so far from what was really going on that I don’t even need to repeat them. Actually, at one point I was under the impression that since a plane had gone down SOMEWHERE in Pennsylvania “near a school” that I became fearful for OUR safety in little ol' Podunk, PA.

Anyway, eventually I learned that my art teacher, Ms. K, had a RADIO, (geesh, who would have ever thought of having a RADIO around them anymore) and I was able to quietly listen in on some real-time reporting of the events which had already occurred. By the time I got home and was able to sit in front of the television with my mom (before my dad came home for supper), I almost didn’t even want to see the videotaped scenes looped over and over again alongside the even narrower gossip and rumors by newscasters that my classmates had no match for. As Baran states, “Just as culture is constructed and maintained through communication, it is also communication (or miscommunication) that turns differentiation into division” (What is Culture?). Maybe I was lucky(?) that I didn’t “get to see” that second plane hit that second tower after news of the first. I don’t know what to consider it except that by the time I saw what had happened it was already over, already filmed, kind of like a movie, but I don’t really want or need to compare it like that.

Whatever the media had turned the events of that fateful day into, no matter what I saw or when I saw it, it became pertinent to my understanding that indeed “the Media are essential components of our lives” (Hanson, 29). As those students and faculty members walked around those halls that day whispering whatever they had heard from whatever source, the necessity of “media literacy” from that day forward had changed in my life. Not only now was I awakened more to stay tuned in, but I also quickly found myself questioning what exactly I was tuned in TO. Additionally, where did the motivation of the messages being portrayed come from? The experience of not experiencing such a tremendously historic and eventful turning point for America, in the same way that most of the rest of the country witnessed, was interesting and unique for me, to stay the least, when compared to my everyday use and “relationship” with a T.V. otherwise. Although it now feels to me that there are also many others (especially those of my generation who had never witnessed such a large-scale political event like that before) who from that day forward have looked at access to media, and even just a television signal, differently.

Link to 9/11 Memorial site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, PA:

http://www.nps.gov/flni/index.htm

Baran, S. "What is Culture?"

Hanson, Ralph E. "Mass Communication: Living in a Media World. Washington, D.C.: C.Q. Press, 2011.