The Selling of 9/11 argues that the marketing and commodification of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, reveal the contradictory processes by which consumers in the United States (and around the world) use, communicate, and construct national identity and their sense of national belonging through cultural and symbolic goods. Contributors illuminate these processes and make important connections between myths of nation, practices of mourning, theories of trauma, and the politics of post-9/11 consumer culture. Their essays take critical stock of the role that consumer goods, media and press outlets, commercial advertising, marketers and corporate public relations have played in shaping cultural memory of a national tragedy.
Introduction: The Selling of 9/11; D.Heller Social Fear and the Commodification of Terrorism; J.Lockard Home Invasion and Hollywood Cinema: David Fincher's Panic Room; B.Nielsen "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore": U.S. Consumers, Wal-Mart, and the Commodification of Patriotism; J.Scanlon "Chosen To Be Witness": The Exceptionalism of 9/11; Ø.Vågnes Advertisements for Itself: The New York Times, Norman Rockwell, and the New Patriotism; F.Frascina Wounded Nation, Broken Time: Trauma, Tourism, and the Selling of Ground Zero; M.Hurley & J.Trimarco The Consumer Logic of Collecting 9/11; M.Broderick & M.Gibson Hitting the Right Chord: Selling U.S. Foreign Policy through Country Music; W.Hart & D.Heller Japanese Mass Media and the Meaning of September 11; Y.Sugita Cynical Nationalism; R.Thomas Foster
