This volume investigates the perception of threat, with particular regard to the roles, functions, and agencies of various types of media. With a focus on the profound impact of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 on the US-American political, social, and cultural order, the chapters reach from the early days after the attacks up to the 2016 election of Donald J. Trump.

An international team of contributors analyze how the perceived threats and their subsequent representations changed during this period and what part different forms of media - media institutions, media technologies, and media formats - played within these transformations. Media theoretical perspectives are thus combined with historical approaches to examine the "re-ordering" of the nation, the state, and society proposed in an increasingly converging, multimodal, and networked media environment.

This book’s focus on the interrelation between Media Studies, Cultural Studies, and American Studies makes it an indispensable landmark for fields such as Historical Research, Media Theory, Narratology, and Popular Culture Studies.

Vanessa Ossa is a research associate at the University of Cologne. As a former member of the Collaborative Research Center 923 "Threatened Order—Societies under Stress" her PhD thesis "Sleeping Threats: The Sleeper Agent in Post-9/11 Media" investigates enemy stereotypes during the "War on Terror."

David Scheu studied history and politics at the University of Tuebingen and the University of Leeds. He has been working on his PhD as a research associate at the CRC 923 "Threatened Order—Societies under Stress." His main areas of interest are contemporary US-American foreign policy and the collective identity constructions within the United States.

Lukas R.A. Wilde is a research associate at Tuebingen University's Department for Media Studies, Germany. His dissertation on the functions of ‘characters’ (kyara) within contemporary Japanese society received the Roland-Faelske-Award in 2018. His main areas of interest are visual communication, picture theory, and media theory.