conflict
& communication online, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2007
www.cco.regener-online.de
ISSN 1618-0747
Beverly Ann Deepe
Keever
De-escalating Media Language of Killing: An Instructional Module
Harnessing substantial
academic research and citing the first comprehensive summary of violence
on a global scale undergirds this online article that elaborates on a
companion web-based resource to be posted at www.toda.org. These twinned
online productions examine the role of the media in producing a culture
of violence and seek to curb its extent and effects.
This article and the accompanying webcast describe the approach of Professor
Emeritus Glenn Paige, author of Nonkilling Global Political Science, which
has been translated into 25 languages. He urges greater media awareness
about the importance of: avoiding the inappropriate use of the language
of killing and, alternatively, avoiding the use of euphemisms to gloss
over or cover up examples of violence. Paige's arguments and this online
article suggest five recommendations for future action.
On the author:
Beverly Ann Deepe Keever, Ph.D., is a professor of journalism at the University of Hawai'i, where she was awarded the Regents Medal for Excellence in Teaching. She served as co-editor of U.S. News Coverage of Racial Minorities: A Sourcebook 1934–1996 (Greenwood Press, 1997). More recently, she wrote News Zero: The New York Times and The Bomb (Common Courage Press, 2004).
Before teaching, she worked as journalist, covering the Vietnam War for seven years successively for Newsweek, The New York Herald Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor and other publications. Her coverage of the besieged outpost of Khe Sanh in 1968 was nominated by the Monitor for a Pulitzer Prize in international reporting.
For a career bridging the profession and professorate, she received in April 2003 an award from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Alumni Association.
Address: School of Communications, 2550 Campus Road, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822–2217.
eMail: bkeever@hawaii.edu