Terrorism is a phenomenon of a media age: it depends on publicity to have an impact. The attacks in New York and Washington can be viewed as the first major act of terror in the new media age.

The sight of two aircraft hitting the World Trade Centre towers was transmitted around the world by 24-hour news channels, the Internet, wap phones, emails and mobile phones. The sight of the second aircraft hitting the southern tower was shown live. Within minutes, news websites had the information. There were unconfirmed reports of people in the World Trade Centre text messaging loved ones or sending emails.

There was something eerily familiar about the scene, which was straight from Hollywood. It was Towering Inferno and Die Hard.

One can assume those who planned the attacks were brought up on the same Hollywood images as the rest of us. Both the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon are iconic images that have appeared in hundreds of movies. Both buildings, as images, represent the US's global power, whether military, commercial or financial. New York is also the centre of the media world, which was why there were so many journalists able to give accounts as seen from their offices.

"Surreal" was the word chosen by many on the radio and television to describe what they had observed. More often than not, they were not describing the scene itself, but the scene as transmitted by television.

It is in the nature of television to transmit the more dramatic footage to hand and the sight of the aircraft crashing into the World Trade Centre is probably the most dramatic piece of actuality ever.

The footage of the aircraft heading towards the building, and disappearing for a moment before smoke and flames exploded from the side of the tower, was shown time and time again. It was shown in slow motion, it was frozen or enhanced; it formed a backdrop for news anchors and discussions.

Other images were also repeated - the towers collapsing, the video footage of the aircraft taken from below the towers. Certain individuals leaving the scene, covered in dust and blood, became increasingly familiar to the millions who watched hours of coverage hoping to learn something new.

One recalled the first war of our media age, the Gulf War, ironically during the presidency of President Bush's father, when missiles exploded as they hit buildings in what looked like computer games where no one died. Scenes of devastation in New York and Washington shown as if on a continuous loop added a feeling of obscenity to the images.

No one knew who was responsible or why it had occurred. To use the classic structure of a news story, we knew the "What, Where and When" but not the "Who, Why and How", so journalists speculated.

RADIO, on the other hand, needs no images, and so could tell the human stories. Ordinary people had space to add their comments. Those who got through to radio programmes were restrained.

In online chat rooms, there were calls to "turn Afghanistan into one big crater".

It was probably too soon for calmer voices put events in the US into context. An American contributor described journalist Robert Fisk as naive on Pat Kenny's programme when he spoke about the Palestinian people and Middle East politics. RTE's Mark Little, reporting from Israel and Gaza said on radio on Tuesday that scenes of jubilation in Gaza were exaggerated and did not reflect the reality. He was ignored. The news that followed his comments reported the scenes of jubilation.

So where did this leave newspapers? In the US many newspapers brought out special editions on Tuesday afternoon, most using the entire front page to show the twin towers frozen as the aircraft hit.

On Friday, newspapers around the world had to cover a story that most people knew in incredible detail.

Despite this the Sun splashed the scene of the World Trade Centre imploding, using the headline, "The Day That Changed the World", and devoted 29 pages to the coverage. Other tabloids gave similar blanket coverage.

As one would expect, broadsheet newspapers gave massive coverage to the events.

But it is worth asking why people turned to newspapers after hours of radio and television. Increased print runs and special editions are not about breaking news. One media commentator, Monica Moses of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in Florida, said on the institute's website: "Print freezes a moment in time; it attaches a few well-chosen words to it; it defines it, informationally and emotionally. It is an organised, finite, community response. In that sense, a newspaper may be more art than information, more essay than report. Television does the play-by-play; newspapers step back and sum it up."

In other words, the newspaper gives order to a world that looks chaotic on television or as breaking news on your mobile phone.

Michael Foley is a senior lecturer in journalism at the Dublin Institute of Technology and a media commentator