Euphemistic language leads, as we learned from Nestle, to confusion for the consumer. What are the results for the citizen when euphemistic language is used in the media?

Actually, euphemistic language may be viewed as an effective way of the deception of consumers or the audience. Obviously, the major goal of a person or organization that uses euphemistic language is to substitute some offensive concepts or message by less offensive ones. In such a way, when media uses euphemistic language the audience an adapted version of the original information or message. In this respect, it is necessary to underline the fact that what media does is the deception of the audience because the substitution of an offensive concept by less offensive one leads to the erroneous perception of the message conveyed by the media. In fact, the criteria of the assessment of the message conveyed by the media by the audience basically remain unchangeable. In such a situation, when the media represents some events as the civil war, while, in actuality, it is not a civil war but a genocide, than it is obvious that the audience will be unable to adequately assess the events that take place in the region or country depicted in the media. On the other hand, the use of euphemism may be justified by the attempt of the media to maintain objectivity and to avoid radical judgments or conclusions which may be just a subjective viewpoint of a journalist, for instance.

In such a situation, the use of euphemism will rather keep citizens uninformed or under-informed since they will not have all the information conveyed via the media. Anyway, it is impossible to use euphemism permanently because it leads to the total elimination of adequate perception of the reality. Obviously, human life is full of offensive events and facts, which cannot be hided from the public under the mask of euphemism. Otherwise, the public will live in an illusory world created by media where the life is stable and almost perfect.



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