11.09.2026 - 14:12 [ Vanity Fair ]

9/11 Changed the World in Many Ways. It Also Spawned the Digital Media Era

The whole world, literally, was watching. Never before had more people seen the same news event at the same moment. An estimated two billion people or more—a third of the species—saw the attacks in real time or watched coverage in that day’s news reports. “If you think about the rise of terrorism since 9/11,” explained David Hazinski, the former head of the University of Georgia’s broadcast news initiative, five years after the attacks, “it’s almost proof that terrorist[s] recognize this is a global village. Now you have the potential to reach a two and a half billion audience for your act.”