The September 11 attacks changed the world. This article explores this common assertion by analysing selected Australian and American media and political representations of the September 11 attacks. The aim is two-fold: to explore these representations and to analyse their functions and implications. Three themes that characterise Australian and American understandings of September 11 in the immediate aftermath of the attacks will be discussed. The first theme is that the impact of the attacks was represented differently in each country (but in a way that reaffirms the status quo in both nations). Second, the countries shared an interpretation of the attacks that reflects the characteristics of mainstream terrorism discourse. Third, the attacks were also understood in both countries as a challenge to existing structures of representation. It is argued that the September 11 attacks, therefore, expose and violate the limits of representation. By breaking the rules of representation, the September 11 attacks raise the possibility of alternative understandings and appropriate responses to them.
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