9/11 as remembered through Twitter

Posted by Professor Boynton

I summon up remembrance of thing past

Current international affairs are largely a remembrance of things past. Lines on a map of ancient vintage set how we organize life today. Institutions such as the United Nations or the World Trade Organization from the past structure current political and economic activity. And there are more personal remembrances. One of these is 9/11. No further identification is needed. We all know/remember 9/11.

Today is 9/11. The New York City Police Department has been using Twitter to memorialize those of their members who were victims on that day (Fitzpatrick, 9/10/2012).

Police Officer Mark Ellis, TD-4 | End of Tour: 9/11/01 ~ ow.ly/dz2cU #neverforget

And many more for those who died.

But the police are not the only ones using Twitter to express their remembrance of the event. I started counting Twitter messages mentioning 9/11 in 2010. That first year I did not get the ninth, and I only got the second half of 9/10. So the numbers the first year are not as complete as later.

	9/9	9/10	9/11	9/12
2010		45,526	201,384	40,276
2011	256,602	294,742	371,714	203,251
2012	85,500	218,174	382,912

In 2011 Twitter was used more than a million times to remember, to never forget, to express continued concern, and lack of understanding of how this could have happened. And Twitter messages are only a small window into our continuing concern.

Our remembrance has become the lynchpin of the war on terror which we have been fighting for a decade. Wars, bombings, large government agencies devoted to stopping terrorism, scanners for surveillance at transportation points like airports, even shoes -- they are all a remembrance of that event propelling us and them to current action.

Of course, there was terrorism before 9/11. The State Department was keeping a record before 2001 so we can have a sense of the prior incidence. These are their numbers from 1982 to 2003.

Total International Terrorist Attacks, 1982-2003
82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90	91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	2000	01	02	03
487	497	565	635	612	665	605	375	437	565	363	431	322	440	296	304	274	395	426	355	198	190

These are the numbers after a decade. (U.S. Department of State . . ., 7/31/2012)

Attacks Worldwide
2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
14,415	11,663	10,968	11,641	10,283

Today we have much more to remember.

References

Fitzpatrick, Alex (9/10/2012) New York Police Use Social Media to Memorialize 9/11 Victims, Mashable.

U. S. Department of State National Counterterrorism Center: Annex of Statistical Information (7/31/2012) Country Reports on Terrorism

United States Department of State (4/2004) Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003, p. 176