How 9/11 Changed Our Relationship to the News

Earlier this month, David Friend spoke as a guest of the @Google lecture series about Watching the World Change, his book about how some of the most striking images associated with the 9/11 terrorists attacks were created, and what their impact has been on our cultural life:

Shortly after the sixth anniversary of the attacks, I spoke with Friend by telephone about the personal connection many readers feel with the book and the stories he tells. “Everybody’s narrative [of the attacks] connects,” he said. “We all have our own story; we always do. But this time history came to our shores. Our stories have become more important to us and everybody wants to talk about them.” The bond between author, readers, and history is not just confined to the book, however; the website Friend created continues to serve almost as a “shadow” narrative, where people continue to submit their pictures of the events. In this nearly hour-long Google lecture, Friend discusses the advances in news gathering technology that made our perception of 9/11 different from that of any other event in history: “a moment when all the advances in television, photography, and the Web converged on a single event,” as the YouTube description puts it.

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