Spin and Creating the Perfect 'Image'; Mission Accomplished?

This report done by CBC (the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) is really interesting, especially in its' look at political communications, public relations, creating 'image' and the Bush administration. Specifically the radio show (I'll link to the transcript) discusses how the George W. Bush's Deputy Communications Director, Scott Sforza and the Bush 'spin' team manufactured 'images' designed to communicate messages of Bush's 'strength', 'leadership', etc.

More specifically it looks at how Bush's communications team created the 'Mission Accomplished' photo op during the Iraq war;

"May 1, 2003, was a picture-perfect day in southern California, a perfect day for cameramen to capture the perfect picture. The co-stars in this classic California drama were President George W. Bush and the American aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. The president wanted to thank the sailors and airmen aboard the Lincoln for their service in the Persian Gulf during the war in Iraq. He could have done that from the Oval Office, but the visuals of that scene would likely not have captured the nation's attention. And on this particular day, grabbing the media spotlight was critically important, because the president had two other missions beyond expressing his gratitude to the men and women on board. The first was to rally support for his war in Iraq. It had been nearly a month since the regime of Saddam Hussein had collapsed, and things were not going according to plan. No traces of the much-ballyhooed weapons of mass destruction had yet been found. The great dictator himself was still at large. The country seemed to be spiralling into chaos. American soldiers and Iraqi civilians were being killed by well-armed and very stubborn insurgents, and there was little evidence that the Iraqi people were welcoming American troops as liberators. That had been one of the messages that Bush and others in his administration had delivered repeatedly to sell the war to the American people.

The second purpose of the president's trip aboard the Lincoln was to capture a quintessentially "presidential" moment, an iconic image of a strong, vigorous, triumphant commander-in-chief who had led his nation to victory over the evil despot, Saddam Hussein, an image that would live, if not necessarily for the ages, at least until the presidential election 18 months later."

I find it interesting how spin is not always created using words i.e. speeches, crafted 'messages' etc but is also created by visuals, mise en scene, lighting, clothing etc. A variety of tactics are used to create political communications in the form of spin and I wonder, can the public tell they are being sold on a message that may not necessarily be true? I mean, voters are savvy (cynical?) enough to view speeches given during election time and policy announcements with a critical eye, but what about finely tuned visuals staged to sell a certain image?

The radio show seems to address this;
'It was all an illusion, of course, but a highly effective one. The president was met with thunderous applause from the thousands of crew members who had gathered on the flight deck. Meanwhile, one commentator on the Fox News Channel gushed that First Lady Laura Bush "has a hottie on her hands — look how good he looks." Another advised contenders for the Democratic nomination that they had better be looking for something to do for the next four years, because "you're not going to be taking that man's job anytime soon." And even those commentators who took their journalistic responsibilities a bit more seriously were either too polite or too intimidated to point out that a younger George Bush had shown considerably less enthusiasm for flying fighter jets when he was called upon to serve his country as a member of the Texas Air National Guard, and there were no photo ops or political points to be scored. But it worked. A poll conducted in the week following the Lincoln visit found 59 per cent of those polled thought it was appropriate for the president to dress up in a flight suit and speak to the sailors on the aircraft carrier. '

In the long run the spin didn't work, the 'Mission Accomplished' photo op is ridiculed and the image of a strong leader spun by the Bush communications team has unraveled. But at the time they worked, and the public fell for the image the Bush team created. Perhaps the public need to become more aware of how political spin is created?

For the full radio program follow this link;
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/spincycles/index-episode4.html