How does the organization handle challenges to the narrative?

Assignment Question

Select an organization and begin a deep dive into all aspects of its public-facing communication – news media coverage, advertising, marketing, YouTube videos, TED talks, social media content, your own observations – the works. As with the first project, your search should include laudatory and critical texts.

What’s the narrative of the organization that emerges from all of this? Not so much their product or cause – though those are important – but the organization itself. What forms does burnishing that narrative take?

How does the organization handle challenges to the narrative? Do they do it well or stumble – provide examples. Then track down a few folks from the organization’s audience.

How would they describe the narrative? What are their responses to it? Ask them to elaborate on their perceptions of the organization – in essence the narrative they inhabit and update. The final piece of the project is making contact with at least two current or retired employees of the organization.

You can agree not to reveal their names in the paper. Ask them whether the public face is anywhere close to the private face – to the reality of communication in the organization as they perceive it.

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