Seeing 9/11 Through a Digital Prism

[Commentary] It is clear that the world changed on 9/11. It is less clear exactly how it did.

Ten years later the debate is still open on the wisdom of waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq, on laws that effectively rolled back civil liberties, on the West's relation to Islam, on America's place in the world. But in one respect, the way the world changed is utterly clear -- the manner in which we witness news events. In 2001, few could have foreseen the way the attacks would coincide with a phase change in how we observe and respond to key moments in public life, and therefore how society and culture go on to interpret history. Three technologies that found their footing in the 1990s -- digital photography, 24/7 television news, and Internet-supported citizen journalism -- came of age that day as some two billion people (a third of the species) watched the attacks unfold on TV and the World Wide Web. But what we couldn't foresee then is how the act of newsgathering would be turned on its head. Since 9/11, the documentation of conflict -- in the form of still photographs and moving pictures, often by civilians carrying camera-equipped mobile phones, whose footage can be viewed almost instantaneously across the globe -- actually takes precedent in the public mind over context and analysis. Often, "traditional" media coverage, no matter how well-funded, thorough and authoritative, is not considered credible or definitive unless accompanied by compelling visual evidence.