pictures in our heads

"Pictures have always been the surest way of conveying an idea .... But the idea conveyed is not fully our own until we have identified ourselves with some aspect of the picture."

the noose in response to lippman's quote is a good example. before we all knew exactly what it meant, not necessarily to a specific event, but now I think we have it as a symbol for what happened in Jena. We have "identified ourselves with some respect of the picture" because it carries a certain meaning now. Before, it conveyed an idea of something that we could refer back to olden days, or of someone possibly commiting suicide. Yet now since the media has plastered this everywhere, they have turned it into the symbol that our heads relate to the event in history of what happened in Jena.