Illustration on Conflicts in News4Jax

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Illustration on Conflicts in News4Jax

In today’s world, mass media plays a major role in conflict by either being actively involved in a conflict and increasing violence or staying out of conflict. The role of media in a given conflict is influenced by the relationship it has with the conflict actors and the independence it has on the society power holders (Puddehat, 2006). The media has a big role in conflict resolution as what they say or write is read and influences many. Unfortunately the opposite is true where what is said or written can cause conflict. Group conflicts occur in our day to day lifestyle and much is reported daily locally and internationally on the issue. The thesis of this paper is illustration of group conflict by media in News4Jax articles, both locally, internationally and editors letter and, how conflict arises, its effect and type together.

Local News

In August 11 2016, the News4Jax posted a conflict article between Global Ministries Foundation and U.S Securities and Exchange Commission. The conflict relates to grabbing of land and illegal land possession, and tax exemption. GMF is a non-profit organization that owns Eureka gardens and other extra five Jacksonville housing projects together with other projects in different states. Last week, GMF headquarters were raided by the federal housing investigators with an I-TEAM document showing a connection of federal law suit that had a tax exempt of $11.8 million issued by New-York Bank of Mellon (“News | Jacksonville, Florida, Local Headlines | News4Jax”, 2016). 

According to “News | Jacksonville, Florida, Local Headlines | News4Jax” (2016), these documents contained emails, voicemails, databases, word processing files, text messages, instant messages or spreadsheets. The spokesman of SEC could not deny or confirm investigations whereas the spokesman of GMF explained to the I-TEAM that GMF will continually cooperate with all government investigations. These land issues conflict are affecting my region and the type of conflict is conflict of interest. The GMF has interest in acquiring, more investments while other organization are interested in reviewing all the loop holes.

Another article is on August 10^th 2016 where a murder lawsuit is filed by the victim’s family against over the security of Eureka Gardens. A teenager murdered a 22yrs young man and his family is filing a case against the owners of the property with claim of poor security in the past years. This conflict is in my region similar to the incident that happened seven days earlier where seven were injured at a mass shooting. This security negligence as the victim’s parent’s states would have been prevented through improved securities. These incidences are so familiar and all the conflicts require judgments. 

International Conflict

In the News4Jax national news, on August 11 2016, there was a conflict between The Drug Enforcement Agency and the government after they refused to loosen medical restriction on marijuana. The group involved in this article is The Drug Enforcement Agency and US government officials. The type of conflict between these groups is task conflict. This is because the two groups are disagreeing because of a certain task, its direction, content and goals. The chief cause of this conflict is different opinion, proposed changes and viewpoints.

The source of this conflict is the different views and opinion regarding marijuana and its growth. Growing marijuana is illegal and DEA belief of need to grow the plant for research use. The officials’ believes that its growth will lead to the drug leaking to the market. The DEA has from 1968 issued license to University of Mississippi to grow marijuana for research and it receives donations from National Institute on Drug Abuse. According to DEA, more universities should start growing the plant to use in their researches. The nation officials’ feels like there will be loop holes that will leak the drug supply to the market.

The conflict is severe because the DEA requires performing researches regarding the drug. This is because, irrespective of the negative effects of abusing the drug, it has healing effects. According to DEA, the District of Columbia and other 2 states use marijuana in treatment of different illness ranging from epilepsy to arthritis (Perez, Gaynor, & Koungang, 2016). According to the article, the DEA is spoken to negatively as it have included the statistics of marijuana abusers. At Quinceanera, the marijuana candy sickens 19, the sites poll’s statistics stating that 1 in eight US adults reveals they smoke marijuana and in Colorado, more kids has been hospitalized after legalization of the drug. The DEA is being discussed negatively as the article concentrates mostly on marijuana negatives rather than being neutral regarding the issue. This is because the task involved is growth of marijuana for researches and the editor is favoring the government officials on the matter.

Letters to the Editor

On the editors’ letters, the News4Jax describes different group complaints and grievances. Many of the letters contains complaints on the violation of children rights locally and internationally, and politics. These grievances are occupying the highest percentage in relation to other complaints. The writers are mostly criticizing the violation of children’s rights and the ongoing political realm in US.  The out-group homogeneity is an out-group members’ perception as being homogeneous while perceiving members of ones group as diverse. This biasness has been violated in some articles where some editors show favoritism to an in-group while discriminating the out-group members.  

References

News | Jacksonville, Florida, Local Headlines | News4Jax. (2016). News4jax.com. Retrieved 13 August 2016, from http://www.news4jax.com/news

Perez, E., Gaynor, J., & Koungang, N. (2016). DEA declines to loosen restrictions on medical marijuana. WJXT. Retrieved 12 August 2016, from http://www.news4jax.com/news/national/dea-declines-to-loosen-restrictions-on-medical-marijuana

Puddehat, A. (2006). Voices of War:Conflict and Rle of Media. International Media Support. Retrieved from https://www.mediasupport.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ims-voices-of-war-2006.pdf