conflict & communication online, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2013
www.cco.regener-online.de
ISSN 1618-0747

Dov Shinar
Reflections on media war coverage: Dissonance, dilemmas, and the need for improvement

Media preference of war has been diagnosed as resulting from correlations of media psychology, culture, and interests with war. Such correlations encourage personal, professional and institutional dissonance, and provoke dilemmas of coverage adequacy; selectivity of narratives and contexts; manipulation, and narrow ranges of discourse and focus. Efforts to curb these difficulties might succeed, with research and applied efforts aimed at updating the media culture of war coverage; helping identify media controls; encouraging gradual and cumulative reporting; employing "thick coverage" and "thick training"; promoting the cooperation of established media with newer types of journalism; assisting journalists in resolving war coverage dilemmas; promoting ongoing field monitoring and empirical research; helping post-war establishment of appropriate media structures, regulatory frameworks, and program production.

The author:
Dov Shinar is Professor, and Head of FAIR MEDIA: Center for the Study of Conflict, War, and Peace Coverage at the School of Communication, Netanya Academic College in Israel. Ph.D. (Hebrew University), and M.A. (University of Pennsylvania) in Communications. Professor Emeritus from Ben Gurion University in Israel and Concordia University in Montreal. Areas of interest and publications, in book format and scholarly journals, include international communications, media in war and peace; media education; media and development. Communication consultant and lecturer in South and North America, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. A former professional and member of the task force that established Israel TV Channel 1, he is still active as free-lance documentary TV producer. Works in Hebrew, English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French.

eMail: dov.shinar@gmail.com