Assignment:
Crisis Communication
Analyzing a Corporate Crisis
Background:
You have presented on how one company responded to a public relations crisis.
Now you will take your presentation-which introduced the crisis and explained and evaluated the corporate response-and write a persuasive essay that specifically argues what three (3) strategies were most effective (or most ineffective) in the company's response?
Take a stance: Is/was the company EFFECTIVE in its crisis response or INEFFECTIVE in its crisis response? You should choose and give three reasons for your stance.
Writing Prompt
After a major disaster or crisis, a company often has to rebut the negative stories about it in the press and present itself and its response as positively as possible.
You will apply both the research you have done for your Individual Presentation: Corporate Crisis AND the analytical skills that you used in Writing Assignment: Analyzing the Annual Report to analyze a company's communication strategies to respond to a crisis and attempt to regain its reputation.
You will review and analyze your chosen company's crisis response, asserting and giving evidence of the three most effective OR ineffective techniques/strategies that worked/did not work to repair the company's reputation.
Essentially, you will choose one of these prompts:
1) You will review and analyze the chosen company's crisis response, asserting and giving evidence of the three most EFFECTIVE response actions, ones that worked well, making reputation repair successful
OR
2) You will review and analyze the chosen company's crisis response, asserting and giving evidence of the three most INEFFECTIVE response actions, ones that did not work well and made the company's reputation repair unsuccessful.
You will reference (where applicable) the Coombs's article "Crisis Management and Communications"
Breaking down the tasks of writing this paper-READ CAREFULLY
1. Read and review the information sources on your chosen crisis. Understand what happened, how it happened, and the consequences. You cannot understand a corporate response without understanding for what a company is held responsible.
BEFORE you make your choice of what are most effective or ineffective actions, analyze deeply the company response.
Here are some GUIDING QUESTIONS to help you analyze what the company said and did:
For example, look at how the company describes its actions. What kind of language does it use? How does it describe itself?
a. What is the response (document/website/video) trying to persuade you to think?
b. How does the company's response refer to the crisis itself? Indeed does it directly refer to it? Are there uses of euphemisms? Does the response avoid mentioning the crisis or the reason for its response?
c. How does the language influence the impression you get of the company?
d. How does the company describe itself and its response to the crisis?
e. What ‘story' is the company trying to tell?
f. What kinds of images does the company use in its response materials-why? How do these images affect how you feel about the company?
g. Can you find a primary message being communicated? If so, how and why does the company focus on this message?
h. Are there glaring mis-steps in the company's communications after the crisis?
2. Now that you have analyzed the company response, connect its response to Coombs and other pertinent readings. For example: What do the company's words/actions/messages attempt to do for the company?
• Justify itself in some way?
• Place blame on another company, organization, or person?
• Highlight its generosity and responsibility? Making it seem as if compensation was the company's idea?
• Demonstrate a commitment to improving its practices?
• Remind stakeholders of the good the company has done?
• Focus on the good the company is doing in this crisis?
• Focus on the repair efforts and thus de-emphasize the damage?
• Show positive images?
3. Now, decide on the company's three most effective OR ineffective responses.
Craft an essay that makes a strong claim that either (a) asserts the three most effective responses/actions or (b) asserts the three most ineffective responses/actions, giving specific evidence of why those actions were effective or not effective. Make sure to use specific evidence to back up your claims.
Write a structured essay that has the following:
1. INTRODUCTION: The introduction sets up the context of this analysis. This includes briefly outlining what happened, the purpose of the response, and a thesis statement.
2. ASSERTIVE THESIS: A strong thesis in the introduction paragraph should assert what you are going to argue in your paper.
3. "TOPIC SENTENCE-DRIVEN" PARAGRAPHS: Body paragraphs should each have a strong topic sentence that asserts one thesis claim.
4. UNIFIED PARAGRAPHS: All body paragraphs should only use evidence that supports the topic sentence claim-no topic drift.
5. PARAGRAPHS THAT USE RELIABLE OUTSIDE SOURCES to contextualize argument.
6. PARAGRAPHS THAT USE DETAILS/DATA/SPECIFICS as evidence to support topic sentence claim. Don't just summarize data from your sources: give examples, analyze them, and explain how and why your chosen company uses them as a crisis communication strategy.
7. CONCLUSION that ECHOES & ELABORATES: Conclude by echoing your thesis statement and discussing briefly whether your company's response has been effective. Go forward from the crisis and assert/explain how the company is affected now, in the wake of the crisis and repair attempt.
Make sure your each of your individual topic claims has a strong specific rationale. For example-
• Johnson & Johnson's reputation repair was successful because preemptively recalling 31 million bottles of Tylenol showed it was willing to sacrifice financially to ensure public safety.
• Johnson & Johnson's reputation repair was successful because its CEO James Burke, demonstrated open communication and transparency by discussing the company's crisis response on major TV shows such as 60 Minutes and Phil Donahue.
Formatting Requirements-READ CAREFULLY
1. Cite all sources using APA Style. An APA style guide is posted on Blackboard, or can be found at www.fox.temple.edu/bcc under "Writing Resources". (Only the citations need to be in APA style; the paper itself does not need to be written in APA style.)
2. No more than 4 pages
3. 12 point Times New Roman or Calibri font, double spaced (for double spacing, you will need to change the default setting on MSWord).
4. Your header should be RIGHT JUSTIFIED and SINGLE SPACED - see example bolded below
Attachment:- Thesis.rar