The news media seems all too eager to overwhelm viewers with conflict. The old news mantra, “if it bleeds, it leads” finds its veracity in today’s media environment. Many of these conflicts that make it to the news often stem from some aspect of culture. In fact, the news will often report the conflict with some sort of cultural framing. In order to be an informed and articulate citizen, one ought to know how to critique cultural conflicts. Informed critique begins with having the ability to describe key aspects of the conflict. A person’s critique of a cultural conflict often depends upon one’s background or vocational choice. As a result, a key part of describing a cultural conflict comes from knowing one’s own background (including vocation). This assignment invites you to think according to your program of study as you explore a very real and present cultural conflict.

• Discuss the following points related to this topic:
• Select a current culturally-based conflict from the news media. An example of this could be the NFL “Take-a-Knee” conflict.
• Work through the 10-steps of the “Change-Oriented Conflict Analysis.” An example of what this will look like when you are through can be found on pp. 67-70 (the end of chapter three) in the Jandt book.
• For this discussion, you may limit your assessment to 3-4 sentences for each step.
• Once you have completely your assessment of the conflict according to the Change-Oriented model, write a summary AND a suggested resolution of the conflict using the perspective of your particular major. For instance, if you are in the criminal justice program, you will want to offer a perspective from the vantage point of a police officer and provide suggestions as to what law enforcement officers ought to do to resolve the conflict.