On May 1, 2010 at around eight pm me and my boyfriend were in a cab going home from Home Depot to 50th Street and Eighth Avenue. It was a long drive home, because Eighth Avenue was so overpacked with traffic as I've never seen before. There were people everywhere. We thought that something must have happened, but we had no idea what. When we got home, my boyfriend checked the New York Times website for any news but didn't find anything. Not worried we went to bed, falling asleep with the sounds of police sirens, which is not unusual for Midtown.
Source: www.kissdetroit.com
The next morning a text message from my mom woke me up, telling me that last night a bomb was found in Times Square... Now that was a surprise! And an explanation for the previous night traffic. My mom, who lives in my home country Moldova, is always the first to inform me about all the news that are happening in the US and in New York especially. I turned on the TV news and was shocked... I couldn't believe it...and it was just a few blocks from where I live. No explosion happened and everybody was safe, but for the next few days the craziness didn't stop, people were reporting anything that they thought was suspicious. I was scared. I was also surprised that the New York Times, which is located in Times Square, didn't have any news about the accident the night before. The next day, however, the internet was full of videos and news about the Times
Square bomb, which shows that the evolution of media has enabled anybody to become a sender of a mass communicational message (Hanson, Ralph, Mass Communication: Living in a Media World. Third edition. Washington DC: CQ Press. Pages 11, 12, 20-21,23). Not only does it enable us to see events and news from different points of view, but it also frees us from waiting on and being dependent only on the opinion of authority.
It was the first time I realized how dangerous living in New York can be, being the number one priority for terroristic attacks, and how nobody can be sure of a tomorrow. When the September 11, 2001 attack happened I was still living in Moldova; I've been in New York for only three years. The 9/11 tragedy was huge worldwide and probably the longest shown on TV and talked about. I watched it, it was scary, it was terrible, but it seemed so far away from me. It happened in the US, which I only saw on TV before and which seemed like a totally different world with an unknown to me culture (S. Baran "What is Culture?"). I thought that something like this will never happen to me or my friends and family. Well in May 2010 it almost happened a few blocks from me...
Source: Daily News
After the bomb scare happened, I was trying to avoid walking through Times Square. I couldn't help thinking that maybe it was a plan to keep all the attention on Times Square, while preparing something deadly somewhere else. I was scared to take the subway and tried to walk as much as I could, but seriously, for how long can you avoid taking subways in New York City...? After a while everything seems the same and people try to forget and continue with their lives till new tragedy happens.
I'm still sometimes very uncomfortable in the subway and suspicious of people and there belongings. I can't help thinking that something might happen when I'm in public places, like a movie theatre, for example, or a concert, show and even bar or night club. If anybody can leave a bomb in the middle of Times Square then I'm scared to think what might happen next.
7/21/2010
ReplyDeleteHi Maria.
I hope you did not get a bad impression about New York. We live in a big city, where everything is possible. We do not want something so terrible to happen, such as a bomb explosion in the heart of the Big Apple.
I have a question. I was not sure where the quote is in the book to support your idea in the second paragraph. This what you wrote, “which shows that the evolution of media has enabled anybody to become a sender of a mass communicational message (Hanson, Ralph, Mass Communication: Living in a Media World. Third edition. Washington DC: CQ Press. Pages 11, 12, 20-21).” It can help more if you just quote a line and narrow your references specifically from examples in the text book, keeping in mind the short length of this blog.
Thank you for teaching me a new place on the map. I learned something new in your blog. I found your country interesting.
Good Luck.
This surely was one news that got everyone scared. I am living here without my parents, so I did experience the same panic attack from my parents back home. I still remember how my girlfriend decided to stay home for several days because of this terror. Perhaps, she exaggerated. However, the legacy of 9/11 attack was (is still) lingering within us. I really hope that you do not lose interest in New York. And I really hope that you don't grow hatred towards certain groups of people. :(
ReplyDeleteSo far, we've been seeing the officials "preventing before happening" in airports and important places only. It's a relief that the NYPD managed to stop the terror before it caused another tragedy. IF this happens again, I really hope the media knows how to deliver the news right because people are easily jolted by news like these.
Diego,
ReplyDeleteThank you for you comment. No, I don't have a bad impression about New York, I love it. It's just that such accidents make one realize how unstable our world can be and that everything might change in a second, which is still not the reason to be depressed and stay home all day, but on the opposite enjoy life and be happy even more.
About your question. I did not quote that from the book, but it was described in the book, so I made a connection to it and I pointed out the pages. You can take a look on the page 12 in the first paragraph and on the page 23 in the second and third paragraph for more information and you will see that I did not quote that, but just referred to it. The reason I mentioned the book, the edition and pages is that not everybody who might read this blog is familiar with the book we are using in the class, so they will need the detailed information about the book in case they want to get more information on the subject.
Thank you again for your comment.
Good luck to you too.
Luke,
ReplyDeleteThank you for you comment. I agree with you, my parents were even more scared than I was here. I still love New York and I think anything can happen anywhere, so this is not the reason to move from here or anything like that. Also, I realize that it's wrong to label the whole group of people because one particular person in it did something bad; everybody is different.
Yes, the officials are trying hard to prevent bad from happening and it's good and I hope they will be successful in the future as well. I also hope, and agree with you, that media will stay true to themselves and will report accordingly to the situation.
Thank you again.