Thesis (MA)--Kent State University, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Apr. 15, 2009). Advisor: Max V. Grubb. Includes bibliographical references (p. 50-55).

Thesis (M.S.)--Ball State University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 42-43). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--George Mason University, 2009. / Vita: p. 370. Thesis director: Dan Rothbart. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Nov. 11, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 360-369). Also issued in print.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Central Florida, 2008. / Adviser: Houman Sadri. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-74).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2003. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-88)

Thesis (M.S.)--Ball State University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 42-43).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, March, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 153-164)

Thesis (M.S.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2007. / Title from title page of source document (p. iii) (viewed on December 6, 2007). Includes Report documentation page (p. ii). Thesis Advisor(s): Susan G. Hutchins, Anthony Kendall. "June 2007." Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-176 ). Also available in print.

Les attentats commis sur le sol américain le 11 septembre 2001 ont transi quasi simultanément une incommensurable communauté de regards. Cette participation scopique plurielle a très vite suscité des analogies avec le cinéma-catastrophe, immense pourvoyeur de fictions d’apocalypse urbaine, accusé d’avoir inspiré les commanditaires de l’attentat, d’avoir déréalisé toute catastrophe et de ne pas nous avoir préparé à son surgissement dans la réalité, ou désigné encore comme mètre-étalon de nos fantasmes apocalyptiques auxquels les images médiatiques ont dû se mesurer au point de déréaliser l’événement lui-même. Pour essayer de saisir les logiques de continuité ou de rupture auquel le cinéma américain se trouve exposé à la suite de cet événement, il importe de se demander dans quelles mesures le 11 septembre a pu entailler les habitudes du regard que le spectaculaire Hollywoodien nous avait intimement inculquées. Par comparaison avec le modèle figuratif des images médiatiques de l’attentat, Hollywood peut-il encore se permettre de mettre en scène le chaos au nom d’une pure invention figurative sans référent réel ? Après le 11/9, la représentation du désastre au cinéma n’est-elle pas en position d’incriminer le plaisir pris autrefois devant le spectacle fictionnel du chaos ? La culpabilité ne s’invite-t-elle pas dans le cœur même de la figuration du désastre, le souvenir dysphorique ne s'immisce-t-il pas dans la représentation urbaine, la reconstitution de l'événement ne déclare-t-elle pas ses limites face aux images médiatiques concurrentielles ? Après le 11 septembre, Hollywood semble se laisser déborder par une réalité insaisissable. / Throughout the world on September 11 2001, people watching their screens simultaneously suffered a deep shock caused by the attacks on the American soil. Given the variety of the viewers, parallels were at once made with Hollywood disaster-films which had always been huge providers of urban apocalyptic fiction. These films were charged with having inspired the perpetrators of the attacks, by naturalising disaster as such – so to speak – and thus leaving us unprepared for its intrusion into the real. In other words, Hollywood would have created a reference for our apocalyptic fears to the point that the media, by replicating such fictional images, thus deprived the tragic event itself of its reality. Because since then, American cinema cannot avoid dealing with narratives ruled by ruptures vs continuities which call for analysis, one needs to examine how deeply the 9/11 tragedy has altered the Hollywood spectator’ s gaze, i.e. one’s visual expectations and habits regarding spectacular attraction. Given the realistic images of the attacks in the media, can Hollywood still afford to show chaos on the screen as mere pleasurable fiction? After 9/11, has it become impossible for us to enjoy chaos on the screen without experiencing a feeling of guilt? How far do tragic memories interfere with any kind of urban representation? How does the cinematic reconstruction of the very event suffer from the essentially competitive nature of media images? After September 11, Hollywood appears unable to cope with a reality which remains forever elusive.

The fundamental essence covered the central role of representation of meaning within signs of photographic images captured of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States of America, in Time magazine’s September 11, 2001 special edition. This was done in order to determine how sign representation appeared in relation to philosophical sociologist Jean Baudrillard’s concepts of simulacra, simulation, hyperreality and massification. These concepts were assessed in relation to dominant theme categories and sub themes contained in the photographic images of this publication by means of a qualitative thematic content analysis. The motivation for the selection of this event was based on its magnitude and worldwide consequences. Furthermore, the images were selected in the specified mass media medium of Time magazine based on Baudrillard’s inference that consumption within a society is based on the controlling codes of society and one of these codes is the mass media. Hence the mass media have control over the value which a sign will have in a specific society thus giving it meaning, and on its inception AOL/Time Warner was the largest media conglomerate ever formed. Therefore what messages they deem as significant to be disseminated will become a controlling code of what signs have which meaning on a global scale. Moreover, Baudrillard believes that the mass media create a dominant belief system, which creates mass ideas and one of the ways in which massification occurs is through the use of images. As such, visuals play a powerful role in the representation of major world events. Particularly photographs because they are a reflection and thus form part of the registration process of what is being witnessed, where in this case it was the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Hence visual images of world events are displayed globally by the mass media, which in turn propagate their own mediation of events and in this particular case terrorism fuelled the massified information that was dispersed. This information is circulated on a global scale via the mass media based on what will generate the most capital by creating what is consumable. What has occurred in the mass media arena is that ownership structures have changed and today there is a major increase in media conglomerates with media power being in fewer and fewer hands. This leads to information flow that is skewed by a specified ideology, which in the case of Time magazine would be a western ideology. In line with the established motivation as well as the dominance of visual supplements in much of the coverage of September 11, 2001, the overriding research problem was to determine how meaning was represented in the signs, from a Baudrillardian perspective, in the dominant themes in selected visuals in Time magazine’s September 11, 2001 special edition. Based on the research, a key underlying finding revealed the idea that in mass mediated cultures everything is a sign and representation of the real and therefore the real loses meaning and is replaced by a hyperreal and thus image and form devour the real and audiences are seduced by the values of signs. / Andrea Crystal