Welcome to re:constructions, a site launched by members of the MIT Comparative Media Studies community in the emotional, intense, and confusing days following the events of 11 September 2001. While much in the world has changed in the time between then and now, including the start of significant critical and historical scholarship around the tragedies in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, we have decided not to update or modify our original site. Instead, we want it to remain a snapshot, an archive of ideas, opinions, and expressions that emerged as we quickly provided a forum for our community to respond and reflect on such tragic events.

We invite you to visit re:constructions, our framing of "one moment in time" as an ongoing resource for research and education. For educators visiting this site to support classroom activities, we call your attention to a project that was directly inspired by re:constructions and developed by Kate Brigham as part of her master's work at the Mass College of Art. Kate's exploration of design as a rhetorical tool may be a helpful application for teachers to use with students in a variety of classroom discussions around the role of the media in shaping public opinion. Further information on her thesis work is available at her website.