Premediation: Affect and Mediality After 9/11

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 have been called the world's first live global media event. Responding to the immediacy and collective shock produced by live coverage of the collapse of the Twin Towers, print, televisual, and networked media have become obsessed with the pre-mediation of potential futures. In an era of heightened securitization, US and global media have attempted to prevent a recurrence of such media trauma by ensuring that no future will be able to emerge into the present that has not already been premeditated in the past. Socially networked US and global media work to premediate collective affects of anticipation and connectivity, while also perpetuating low levels of apprehension or fear. Following up on the groundbreaking work of media theory Remediation: Understanding New Media, Grusin develops the logic of premediation in terms of such concepts as mediality, the affective life of media, and the anticipation of security.