There are two commandments during the year that are explicitly associated with "publicizing the miracle" ("פירסומי ניסא"): lighting Chanuka candles and reading Megilat Esther on Purim. These are the two commandments that are associated with the blessing "... Who performed miracles for our ancestors on those days, in this season." Given that these two commandments share a goal (though they might each have other goals), I am wondering why they seem to take very different approaches to that goal, each with its own apparent strengths and weaknesses with respect to accomplishing it.
Lighting candles is a purely symbolic act that seems to mean nothing to someone who doesn't know the story, while reading the Megila explicitly tells the story. It would seem that the latter more directly publicizes the miracle.
We light candles, preferably, facing the public thoroughfare, while we read the Megila, typically, inside a synagogue, out of the public's eyes. It would seem that the former gets the message out to more people.
So, why do these two practices use such different modes to accomplish the same goal? Why don't they both combine the apparent strengths of both, so that we'd do something like shouting both stories from megaphones in the public square or putting both stories on big, lit billboards?
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