Introduction

This book takes up the logics and practices of mediation circulating through the United States in the period after 11 September 2001. The book traces the emergence, or more accurately the intensification, of a logic of “premediation” in post-9/11 America. Although premediation predates the event of 9/11, it became plainly evident in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2002 and 2003. Moreover, premediation has continued to proliferate throughout innumerable media practices and formations in the years following the commencement of the war in Iraq in March 2003 — through the abuses of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and indefinite detention, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 US presidential election, the global financial crisis commencing in the fall of 2008, and the contested Iranian election in June 2009.