Language And Symbols

By Author: Kathleen
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The print and electronic news media can be manipulated through the effective use of language and visual symbols. Because of its reliance on the visual, television news is particularly vulnerable to the strategic Tag Heuer Replica use of visual symbols. Thus for example, when early in his papacy Pope John Paul II knelt with two former concentration camp captives at an execution wall in Auschwitz, the visual that resulted constituted a nonverbal Vatican repudiation of the view that the Jews killed Christ.

John Paul II was uniquely suited to this scene. Since he was a member of the Polish underground that acted to save Jews, the scene was an extension of his personal commitment. In addition, Auschwitz is in Poland, and his presence was a reminder of Polish Catholics' suffering at the hands of the Nazis and, implicitly, at the hands of the Russians. Such events rivet photographic attention because little or no commentary is required--the picture is the story. If these kinds of scenes were routine, they would not be newsworthy. It is both the freshness of the ...
... symbols and their ability to stand for more than themselves that make them attractive to news photographers. Nonverbal symbolic acts that require verbal commentary are less effective.

Similarly, in spring 1990, the wife of former Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Marcos, shaped national network coverage of her acquittal on charges of misuse of state funds and at the same time secured front-page newspaper access. Marcos accomplished this by inching her way up the aisle of a church on her knees in a black mourning dress to "thank God" for the trial's outcome. The black dress re-minded viewers of her widowhood, kneeling suggested that she was religious, and movement up the aisle in the posture of a penitent suggested her humility and the in-justice of seeking to convict her. How, after all, could one assume the guilt of a humble, religious widow, kneeling in church?

Aware of the power of such symbols, political candidates search for locations that will visually reinforce sympathetic parts of their biographies. For 1996 Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole, that backdrop was Russell, Kansas, his hometown. The town is filled with places linked to Dole's humble origins, including Dawson's drugstore, where the Kansan worked as a soda jerk. As reporters noted, Russell, Kansas, is "an irresistible symbol of the small-town virtues that helped Dole overcome a debilitating war injury and climb the ladder of electoral success." When Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Bradley announced his candidacy, he followed the same sort of script, bringing reporters to the small town in Missouri where he was raised.

Nonverbal symbols are risky because sometimes they are open to more than one interpretation. At the close of the dedication ceremonies at the Nixon Library, for in-stance, former president Nixon raised his arms while shaping V's with the fingers of each hand. The gesture was one characteristic of Nixon Breitling Replica Watches the campaigner and Nixon the president. Parodists of the former president frequently used it to cue audiences that they were about to begin their impressions of Nixon. In the context of the library ceremony, the symbol could have indicated a final victory over those who invited his resignation from office. Alternatively, it could have suggested that this, too, was a campaign event, and as such a bid for legitimacy not yet accorded him by history. In politics, a similar problem can arise when a campaign slogan is open to more than one interpretation or when it lends itself to easy parody.