Photography and September 11th: Spectacle, Memory, Trauma - Hardcover

Good, Jennifer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1472533313 ISBN 13: 9781472533319

Publisher: Routledge, 2015

Synopsis

It is all but impossible to think of September 11th 2001 and not, at the same time, recall an image. The overwhelmingly visual coverage in the world's media pictured a spectacle of terror, from images of the collapsing towers, to injured victims and fatigued firefighters. In the days, weeks and months that followed, this vast collection of photographs continued to circulate relentlessly. This book investigates the psychological impact of those photographs on a stunned American audience.

Drawing on trauma theory, this book asks whether the prolonged exposure of audience to photographs was cathartic or damaging. It explores how first the collective memory of the event was established in the American psyche and then argues that through repetitive use of the most powerful pictures, the culture industry created a dangerously simple 9/11 metanarrative. At the same time, people began to reclaim and use photography to process their own feelings, most significantly in 'communities' of photographic memorial websites. Such exercises were widely perceived as democratic and an aid to recovery. This book interrogates that assumption, providing a new understanding of how audiences see and process news photography in times of crisis.

About this title

Book Description

A ground-breaking study of the photographic representation of 9/11 in terms of psychoanalysis, trauma, discourses of power, spectacle and collective memory.

About the Author

Jennifer Good is Senior Lecturer in History and Theory of Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London, UK.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1472533313
• ISBN 13: 9781472533319
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 196