Instructor: Jennifer Guiliano
Topic: Narratives of the Past and Digital Media
The most prolific way we encounter persuasive authoring each day is through the media: be it the television, print, web, or audio. Using September 11th and its media coverage as a starting point, we will explore how the narrative of a single day of events have been shaped by various forms of digital media.
Pre-class Reading:
Peter Liebhold. Collecting September 11: Remembrance and Reflection. http://americanhistory.si.edu/september11/2011/collecting.asp
Roy Rosenzweig, “Scarcity or Abundance: Preserving the Past in the Digital Era” American Historical Review. http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/108.3/rosenzweig.html
Steve Brier and Joshua Brown, “The September 11 Digital Archive” Radical History Review Issue 111 (Fall 2011). Brier.Sept11.RadicalHistoryReview
Shannon Perich, September 11: A story told in Pixels. http://blog.americanhistory.si.edu/osaycanyousee/2011/08/september-11-a-story-told-in-pixels.html
September 11th Digital Archive. http://911digitalarchive.org/index.php
Smithsonian Institution September 11th Digital Collection. http://americanhistory.si.edu/september11/collection/
Post-class Assignment (due 8:00 AM EST on 10/09/2012):
Explore Tuesday September 11th (http://archive.org/details/911/day/20010911) and Monday September 17th (http://archive.org/details/911/day/20010917) at the Understanding 9/11 (http://archive.org/details/911) archive site. Select the same time and the same station on those two days and compare and contrast the narrative elements of the t.v. coverage paying attention not just to the content of the narrative but the visual elements as well. How has the narrative and its elements changed over time? You should repeat this exercise for two different stations (one should be non-US).