What I found most interesting about these two articles, specifically the article about former President Bush and his stage crew, is how much propaganda is used and easily the consumer is molded by imagery. In the Bush article one of the key four crew members in setting up the stages for Presidential speeches said that "Americans are leading busy lives, and sometimes they don't have the opportunity to read a story or listen to an entire broadcast...But if they can have an instant understanding of what the president is talking about by seeing 60 seconds of television, you accomplish your goals as communicators." This theory follows the cliche, 'seeing is believing.' While I understand that presentation is extremely important in presidential speeches, or what is essentially propaganda, I was amazed to see that in the 2003 fiscal year had a budget for $3.7 million towards the 'image makers.'
The second New York Times article, complements the idea that imagery can be extremely persuasive. This article instead focuses on how wars can be fought through television coverage. The power of television however provides a problem for the government, they have to find a way to control what is shown to the public, in order to produce the reaction that they want to see (which is also discussed in the Franklin article "From Realism to Virtual Realty..") The footage and imagery that were exposed during the Vietnam War, is part of the reason that the government is so anxious to limit the coverage of war. Which leaves plenty of room to wonder what is being left out of the authorized images.
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