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How the media represented 9/11

The medias portrayal of the September 11 attacks and their aftermath play a big role in shaping the publics understanding of terrorism national security and immigration in the U.S. In the days and the weeks following 9/11 the media outlets became the primary source of information and the opinions they presented influenced how the American public perceived the events, the governments response and the bigger goal globally.

The ways in which the media represented 9/11 would go on to eventually shape the political changes and policy decisions in the years that followed, including the framing of national security and immigration policies. Media representations also had lasting consequences on how different Muslim and Arab Americans were perceived as well as treated in the post 9/11 world. 

The Immediate  Response

In the aftermath of the attacks media coverage was dominated by a sense of collective shock as well as grief. The visual impact of the events. Live bradcasts of the Twin Towers collapsing, the Pentagon in flames, and the images of first responders working through the rubble. This all captured the attention of the world and set the stage for what would be a story of heroism, national unity and vulnerability.

A Nation in Shock 

"The article critiques early publication on the response to September 11th particularly American works; they say that the works tend to have an extremely limited view and are far too single viewed. The works do not examine how the effects of September 11th affected the entire world. Critics like Neil Lazarus and Ellece Boehmer argue that the "War on Terror" is part of a larger pattern of imperial violence, rooted in long-standing colonial histories. They argue that the early works do not focus on the real problem; the victims of the terror. It focuses on the perpetrators of the terror. Although at the start the works were very western centric, later works come out and shift the focus to global reprobation's. These works, such as those by Kamila Shamsie and Nadeem Aslam, often examine the consequences of imperial decisions on the Global South, moving beyond simplistic depictions of good vs. bad Muslims." (Hamilton 2) As I highlighted in MP2 the early works made by Americans were mostly short sighted and limited during early responses .

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United States reaction

"For example, right after the attacks the first retort was that the United States had was to heighten their security measures. We see the change in our policies, particularly in our changes to our policies about immigrants, counterterrorism, and foreign policy. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we see literary works that represent themes of survival, resistance, and decimation that the war brought about for them."(Hamilton 2). The literary works used by the Untied states far differed from what other nations reacted with, the United States blamed all muslims for what one group did, the stigma still surrounds them to this day. 

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