1.
Trump to Attend 9/11 Anniversary Ceremony in Pennsylvania
(first news!!) Critical POV towards Trump and negative association with him and 9/11
2.
Reflection on 9/11
Museum’s plan for 9/11 anniversary
https://www.911memorial.org/reflect-911
3.
“Holy place”: New York City marks 9/11 anniversary
speeches and video from Anniversary
4.
Donald Trump’s unpresidential 9/11 morning
criticise Trump through comparison of 9/11 anniversary tweets
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/11/politics/donald-trump-september-11-hurricane/index.html
5.
Infowars uses 9/11 anniversary to promote conspiracy theories about the attacks, sell products on Facebook
Negative events happening during 9/11 anniversary
6.
Skylight at World Trade Center Oculus opens for 9/11 anniversary
World Trade Centre celebrate 9/11 with an architecture design (pic from instgram)
https://ny.curbed.com/2018/9/10/17841472/world-trade-center-oculus-skylight-9-11-memorial
7.
9/11 Anniversary Moments, 2018
touching moments presented in photos telling stories of 9/11 (tower of voice-flight 93)
https://www.jems.com/articles/slideshow/2018/09/9-11-anniversary-moments-2018.html
8.
Remembrance ceremony at WTC site marks 17th anniversary of September 11 attacks
ceremony process along with telling the shocking story of 9/11
https://abc7ny.com/society/tears-tributes-as-nyc-marks-17th-anniversary-of-9-11/4209938/
9.
2018 marks the 17th anniversary of 9/11.
Guide to the anniversary events, effect on people, news channels.
http://www.chiff.com/home_life/holiday/september-11.htm
10.
NYC subway, Flight 93 memorial open for 17th anniversary of 9/11
Started with NYC subway the talked about the past 9/11, the anniversary events, firefights who sacrificed and add to the memorial and lastly people’s effort on it as money fund for the aftermath of this tragedy ( along with touching quotes, and showing statistic)
11.
The 9/11 World Trade Center Attack 17 Years Later: Here’s What I Hope We’ve Learned
Using 17th anniversary as a starting point, to convey personal reflection and conclusion on 9/11 events, statistic, mostly a lesson that the US has “learned”.
https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/9/11-attack-world-trade-center-commemoration-memorial-lessons.html
12.
The Most Powerful Quotes Remembering 9/11 on the 17th Anniversary
Touching and powerful quotes listing that were spoken in other anniversary and recorded/replayed during 2018 9/11 anniversary
https://parade.com/125076/parade/09-tribute-to-9-11/
13.
U.S. Marks the 17th Anniversary of 9/11 With Somber Tributes and a New Monument
http://time.com/5392361/9-11-17th-anniversary-memorial/
Our professor has led us to perceive the 9/11 clipping differently by the focus on their headlines and images first.
After comparing the basic similarities and difference in all the sources I found, I concluded some possible intentions (Why?s) of these clippings. They are to inform, or to express emotions, such as warning, remembering, sad, appreciation, thankfulness, frightened, rage and so on.
Headline
Commonly repeated words or phrases in headlines are “attack”, “Trump”, “9/11 anniversary”, “victims”, “America/ NYC”, “ 2017/ 17th” and “ remembering,” which expresses political, or national, negative and positive emotions and energy.
“Attack” and “Victims” in headline indicates the reader that these articles are going to remind people the terrible attack and thousand death of innocent victims, these articles are bringing negative energies just through their headlines.
“Trump” in the headline implies political values in the articles, using 9/11 anniversary as a media to either criticize Trump personally or praise him as a representative of America.
“America” and “NYC” expresses national emotion towards the lost in 9/11. As a nation, it indicated the importance of 9/11 events and promote towards outside that America nation fight towards lost and obstacles. It’s a pitch that advocates positive national power, stand and image.
“Remembering” has a more positive and appreciating message. Send worldwide “thank you” letter to the ones who fight towards death, who sacrifice to save lives, such as the firefighters.
Images
Looking at all the images attached in the clippings I realized there are repetitions of the American flag, Picture of Trump, People and crowds, Historical photos of the event, Soldiers, Subway, 9/11 memorial, people with strong emotions, World Trade Centre, Firefighters, and anniversary activity.
Photos of the sky, American flag, or roses are all abstract and symbolistic, to metaphorically express the sadness towards the lost. With a dark color palette to emphasizes unreturned lives that America have lost in 2001.
There are two types of image of Donald Trump. The first type is an unaesthetic picture of Trump’s face enlarged; the other one is his back towards the audience and the memorial in the background. These two types of image indicate different intentions. The first one communicates a national anger toward him personally. In the article, the author uses Trump’s twitter as evidence to prove that Donald Trump is disrespect towards the loss of American in 9/11. The intention is more likely to use 9/11 as another “excuse” to darken trump’s reputation, trump attending anniversary is more focused in these articles than the actual 9/11 anniversary events. The other type, by having his back towards the audience, he is no longer the subject either the focal point of the image. The audiences generally look at the background rather than trump personally. This way, the representative of America is strongly associated with the 9/11 anniversary and has more of a positive message in this one than the other one.
Warm-hearted photos such as soldiers, firefighters, people, and crowds are to appreciate and thank the large sacrifice of people who fight to save lives, to lighten the event with positive energies and to emphasize the warm-hearted moments that will be forever remembered as the representative of hopes and love, also the man-force of America.
Historical photos such as smoke, twin tower, airplanes hitting the building are attached to remind people of the frightening story of the American attack. The twin tower, as the past representative of American trade power, were being attacked. It’s informative but also warning.
Emotional photos such as people crying, crowds along the memorial are to affect readers and connect them with the lost. Putting readers in victims’ families’ shoes, as part of the anniversary, to feel and pray for the one who lost their lives or loved ones, to appreciate the ones who give generous forgiveness.
Nowadays photos such as the world trade center, the new subway and anniversary activity are a positive propaganda that empowers the image of America, and to record the changes and development America has made since that tragedy. Using the present not to subside the past, but to remember the past and testify how the present have built upon the past and become better.
Language
The structure of most of the texts can be categorized into two types of writing: the one type consists of reporting or listing short paragraphs, along with many statistics, does not usually echo with the headline but using it as a hook; The other type has a more natural way of writing where a lot of opinions are included and uses many quotations and strong openers for each paragraph in bold. Rarely, but one of the articles uses a structure that divides it into 2 parts, which the first part is about the negative past, the sad loss, and the second part is about the encouraging positive changing nowadays. This structure is a precise design to capture audiences’ hearts by pushing them down to the rock bottom and then raise them up again.
What really surprises me is that the vocabularies or even the sources of knowledge are very diverse. Some articles choose to move readers’ heart by using echoing and strong vocabularies such as “holy”, “reflect”, “lost” “learn”. But oppositely, some articles rather choose to use unreliable sources such as “tweet”, “facebook”, and puts the main focus on negative political news such as “Donald Trump”.
How and what the author chooses to emphasize really exposes various perspectives as well as different groups of the community. 60% of articles I found put the emphasis on informing the horrific past; while 20% of them focus the present moment, comparing what changes have made since then; And the last 20% put center of attention on the future, on how to prevent the same loss and mistakes from happening, and how to improve based on the “lesson” people have learned. Different emphasis presents different purposes, to encourage, or to remember, or to blame and warn.
