From American flag decals and replicas of the World Trade Center to an emotionally fueled advertising campaign for The New York Times, the marketing and commodification of September 11 reveals the contradictory processes by which consumers in the U.S. (and around the world) communicate and construct national identity through cultural and symbolic goods. Contributed essays take critical stock of the role that consumer goods, media and press outlets, commercial advertising, marketers, and corporate public relations have played in shaping cultural memory of a national tragedy.

Introduction: The Selling of 9/11--Dana Heller * Social Fear and the Commodification of Terrorism--Joe Lockard * Home Invasion and Hollywood Cinema: David Fincher's Panic Room--Bianca Nielsen * "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore": U.S. Consumers, Wal-Mart, and the Commodification of Patriotism--Jennifer Scanlon * "Chosen to Be Witness": The Exceptionalism of 9/11--Øyvind Vågnes * Advertisements for Itself: The New York Times, Norman Rockwell, and the New Patriotism--Francis Frascina * Wounded Nation, Broken Time: Trauma, Tourism, and the Selling of Ground Zero--Molly Hurley & James Trimarco * The Consumer Logic of Collecting 9/11--Mick Broderick & Mark Gibson * Hitting the Right Chord: Selling U.S. Foreign Policy through Country Music--William Hart & Dana Heller * Japanese Mass Media and the Meaning of September 11--Yoneyuki Sugita * Cynical Nationalism--R. Thomas Foster