
As it proliferated online, so did dozens of its digital re-imaginings that offered alternative takes on that moment in time.

The Situation Room image in particular became and remains the single dominant photograph of the event, whose coverage was tightly controlled by the administration. The photograph was among nine images taken by then White House chief photographer Pete Souza and publicly released by the White House on the photo-sharing Web site Flickr the next day to much fanfare. White House Situation Room,, by Pete Souza.

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who sits in the bottom right corner with her right hand over her mouth, looking worried.įigure 1: U.S. One of the picture’s signature details is the facial expression of then U.S. national security, terrorism and counter-terrorism officials are seen watching the bin Laden raid unfold in Abbottabad, Pakistan on a screen outside the frame ( Figure 1). and foreign newspapers ran on their front pages the now famous photograph of the White House Situation Room video monitoring session. Two days after Osama bin Laden was killed on, countless U.S. Situation Room icon, chronology and discord The study highlights potential competition that Internet memes might pose to institutional accounts of the past and to icons themselves, suggesting possible fracturing of iconicity in remix culture. This qualitative interpretative study argues that many of the memes that proliferated through cyberspace symbolically subverted the bin Laden raid, disrupting and challenging its celebratory framing by the administration. Within hours of its public release, scores of Internet memes of the famous picture offered alternative interpretations of what had taken place in Pakistan during the military mission, often contradicting the president’s positive description of the operation.

President Barack Obama and cabinet members watching the Osama bin Laden raid in 2011, remains the dominant official image of the event. The Situation Room photograph, which shows U.S. The Situation Room icon and its Internet memes: Subversion of the Osama bin Laden raid and fragmentation of iconicity in remix culture
