Abstract

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the multimedia production and hyperlinking capabilities of the Web were employed by individuals and organizations of all kinds to provide information, features, news, services, reactions, as well as virtual memorials, to Web users around the world. The unfolding events in New York and Washington, D.C. provoked a digital thunderstorm on the Web, beginning within moments of the first plane crash and continuing for weeks afterward. A multi-institutional effort to capture and preserve Web-served materials related to the attacks resulted in the creation of a September 11 Web Archive, accessible via http://september11.archive.org. Web users from around the world contributed URLs to be included in the archive.

In the first presentation in this panel a member of the U.S. Library of Congress Web Preservation Team will provide an overview of the process by which the archive was created, including the challenges of coordinating the collaborative effort. The other three papers draw upon different kinds of Web materials produced by a variety of entities. Foot and Schneider’s paper analyzes social and political action in the post-9/11 Web sphere. Krishnamurthy’s paper details the virtual re-enactment of the 9/11 events in blogs. Halavais’ paper examines shifts in the construction of “news” that were evident on the Web in the aftermath of the attacks. Beyond their topical focus on the Web in the aftermath of September 11, these papers provide insight into the Web as a multi-faceted, emergent public sphere. The panel will conclude with commentary on the papers by Lee Rainie, Director of the Internet and American Life Project.