First things first: I am not endorsing either candidate with this post. And I was inspired to write this after reading Presentation Zen: John McCain’s background visuals.
I watched the McCain speech on TV and yes, I was really bothered by the green screen behind him. And the blue screen. Of course, those in the live audience could see that it was not a green screen, but an image of what we now know as Walter Reed Middle School. Pundits have speculated that the campaign meant to show a photo of Walter Reed Army Medical Center – either way, I want to know why no one thought about how the background would look to the TV audience and more importantly, what it had to do with McCain’s speech.
The McCain camp was quoted as saying that “it’s [the Walter Reed Middle School image] simply a generic photo, like others used and it had no specific meaning.” I hope that the PR person running the campaign doesn’t really believe that because it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of our cultural communication.
Images ALWAYS have specific meaning. That’s what they do. To brush off a photo used in the biggest speech of his campaign as “generic” is incomprehensible to me. These background images should have been carefully chosen to support McCain’s message. We live in a visual culture. You can’t slap something up on a 52×30-foot screen during a nationally-televised speech and not think about what message the image conveys.
Thoughts?
