September 11, 2001, represents not only the most tragic event of modern times on American soil but also the event that garnered the most intense and pervasive media coverage of our time. The need for information is the instinctive human reaction to crisis. After September 11th, this need was especially great. In the aftermath of this tragic event, journalism and mass communication scholars around the country used a variety of research methods and theories to investigate the news media's performance and the audience's response. In Media in an American Crisis, these studies have been edited into one collection that informs us about the communication process during a national crisis. The content is rich in its variety of perspectives and topics.