We have read about multiple broad topic areas in organizational communication, including organizational socialization (Chapter 6), relationships (Chapter 7), leadership (Chapter 8), teams and groups (Chapter 9), change and crisis management (Chapter 11), and diversity (Chapter 12). We’ve also read about approaches to organizational communication, including classical, humanistic (HR & HRM), systems, critical, and cultural approaches.
Within each of these chapters, we read about a variety of specific organizational communication concepts (i.e., all of the bolded terms discussed in each chapter). For this report, you will select use your media example to make connections to and analyze three specific organizational communication concepts of your choice.
The goals of this paper is:
1. To conduct academic research to help you explain and discuss the three specific organizational communication concepts you chose to analyze in your media example.
2. To make connections between your media example and the three concepts you are analyzing using the example.
3. To consider how these concepts and your analysis might help real-life employees, managers, and/or organizations. This paper is a reflection of your understanding of course concepts, organizational communication, and what you’ve learned throughout our discussions!
For this paper, make sure you select three specific concepts from within the chapters listed above. Broad topic areas, like “organizational socialization” or “organizational relationships,” are not specific concepts. In your paper, you will identify and might briefly discuss the larger topic area of your concepts (like organizational socialization or organizational relationships), but you will need to pick three specific concepts for your analysis. An example of a specific concept from Chapter 6 (which focuses on organizational socialization), is “the encounter phase” of socialization.
You will use a minimum of 2 sources to write this paper:
• One (1) source should be our course textbook
• One (1) source should be about your artifact
• You should bring in academic research about your concepts and recommendations to further unpack your artifact and interpretations, but this is not required. This paper is more of a “reflection” on your understanding of our course, course concepts, and how you will use these course concepts throughout the rest of your lives.
Your paper should include the following elements (it might be helpful to use this as an outline for your paper):
1. Introduction (5 points; 1 paragraph)
• Briefly identify the specific concepts you are analyzing and introduce the media example you will analyze.
• Provides an overview of the purpose/goals of the paper (an interpretation and reflection of course concepts alongside an artifact to demonstrate 1) what you’ve learned in the course, 2) how what you’ve learned shaped your interpretation of a media artifact, and 3) how what you’ve learned shape your recommendations for organizations and your artifact)
• Provides an overview of the organization of the paper
2. Review of and Reflection on Concepts (15 points total; 5 points for each concept; 1 paragraph each (about ½ a page each))
In this section, you should provide review/overview of and reflection on the three concepts you will analyze in the context of your media example. You should use our course textbook and class discussions to write this section (and maybe even an academic article, if you feel inclined!). This section should NOT include any discussion or information about your media example—the point of this section is to introduce, explain, and discuss the three concepts you have chosen.
• Explain and discuss each of the three concepts you will later analyze in the context of your media example. For each concept, use a combination of your textbook and our class discussions to:
• Define and explain the concept
• Explain how communication scholars study the concept—you should be citing sources when you do this!
• Provide an argument why the concept is important to understand and study for organizations, employees, and communication researchers
3. Overview of Media Example (3 points; 1 paragraph (about ½ a page))
In this section, you should include a brief, high-level overview and/or summary of your media example. Here are some questions to guide you:
• If I have never seen the TV show, movie, or other artifact you are analyzing, what should I know about it before I read your analysis?
• What is the context?
• Who are the main characters relevant to your analysis?
• What background information do I need to understand your analysis
4. Media Analysis (15 points total; 5 points for analysis of each concept; 1 paragraph each (about ½ a page each))
In this section, you should analyze your concepts in the context of your media example. Include the following and use the following questions to help you with your analysis:
• Describe specific examples of each concept in your media example—where do we see these concepts “in action” in your media example?
• Explain the connections you are seeing by using specific quotes or describe detailed examples/exchanges from your media example that illustrate the concept you are analyzing—you should be citing sources when you make these connections!
• Use the following questions to guide your analysis. You should be citing your sources throughout your analysis. (These are general recommendations to help you think through your analysis; if you have other questions/ideas guiding your analysis, I am happy to discuss them with you if you would like feedback/guidance.)
• When we analyze this example using course concepts, what do we learn about the situation? How does this help us understand the concepts?
• What unique perspective does this example give for analyzing the concepts?
• How does this example and the concepts you chose fit into a bigger picture about communication in organizations?
• What can we learn about communication in organizations from examining these concepts in the context of your media example?
5. Recommendations (10 points; about 1-2 paragraphs)
In this section, you should provide recommendations that apply to real-life employees, work teams, managers, and/or organizations based on the concepts you analyzed in the context of your media example. For instance, many of you analyzed families, sport teams, or other types of interactions outside of formal “organizations.” How does your analysis and interpretations shape your recommendations for workplaces, organizational members, or work teams, specifically? You should also address how your interpretation will shape your OWN workplace interactions in the future.
• Based on your analysis of what we can learn from your media example, discuss the following for each concept:
• In one paragraph, address specific recommendations and/or suggestions could you offer real-life employees, work teams, managers, and/or organizations related to the concepts you used
• In another paragraph, address how your analysis might shape your own workplace interactions in the future
• Provide a clear rationale for why you are making each recommendation and how it will impact/improve communication in real-life organizational situations.
6. Conclusion (5 points; 1 paragraph)
• Wrap up the ideas you discussed in your paper
• Provide some big takeaways about your concepts and our course
• What do we learn from analyzing this media example and these three concepts?
• What big takeaways do you have about communication in organizations after conducting this analysis?
7. References
• Include an APA 7th edition formatted reference page
• Citing electronic sources
• Citing books
• Basic rules for reference lists
• APA Student Sample Paper—see Reference page for formatting example (page 17 of the Sample paper)
Technical Requirements (8 points)
1. Follow APA 7th edition formatting standards
• Your paper should follow APA 7th edition standards, including a title page, the use of headings (and subheadings, if appropriate), have 1” margins, 12 pt., double spaced, Times New Roman font, include page numbers, and your paragraphs should be indented. Please see the APA 7 Student Paper” example for how you should format a paper according to APA 7th edition standards.
2. Proofread your paper
• Your paper should be proofread for typos, grammar, and syntax. Papers with a significant number of typos, grammar, and/or syntax errors will be downgraded one letter grade.
3. Paper length
• The body of your paper (introduction through conclusion) should be no more than 6 double-spaced pages long (this page limit does not include your title page or references page). Shoot for 4-6 pages – simple!
4. Organization
• Your paper should be organized and easy to read. This includes using headings (and, when appropriate, subheadings) to organize content in each section of your paper.
5. A minimum of seven (5) sources
• One (1) source should be our course textbook
• One (1) source should be about your artifact
• At least three (3) sources to help you conduct academic research about your concepts and recommendations
• A minimum of one sources for each concept
• These sources should be academic, scholarly sources (e.g., a book chapter from an edited volume, a peer-reviewed journal article, an encyclopedia article, etc.). If you are wondering if a source you found is an academic, scholarly source, please email me to ask.
6. Cite your sources in-text
• Your paper should include in-text citations citing your sources. Please note that there are specific rules for in-text citations for one versus multiple authors. In-text citations can be incorporated into your sentences or included parenthetically. You should limit the use of direct quotes; however, if you do incorporate a direct quote into your paper, you must include the page number in your in-text citation. Review an APA guide for how to format direct quotes over 40 words long. See examples below:
• According to Brewer and Westerman (2018), the classical theorists failed to consider workers’ needs and motives.
• The classical theorists failed to consider workers’ needs and motives (Brewer & Westerman, 2018).
• “If you are directly quoting a source, you need to use quotation marks and include a parenthetical citation after the direct quote, formatted like this” (Author & Author, Year, p. #).
• “If you are directly quoting an online source with no page numbers, you still need to use quotation marks and include a parenthetical citation after the direct quote; instead of a page number, you will include the paragraph number. To find the year of publication, look at the bottom of the webpage to find the copyright date” (Title of Webpage, Year, para. #).
Student Note: The artifact I chose to work with is the 2013 film ‘Olympus Has Fallen’, with a strong focus on crisis management. If you have not seen the film, you can watch it for free with a Netflix subscriiption. Below I will provide a link to the textbook.
https://2012books.lardbucket.org/pdfs/an-introduction-to-organizational-communication.pdf
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