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CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS AZA2030 ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES
The topic: Climate change - believe it or not?
This assignment aims to test your understanding of a framed message. This project will also assess your persuasive communication tactics. Can you in fact convince your stakeholders to ignore or join cause by appealing to their cultural values and beliefs? People process messages differently depending on their involvement in an issue. You need to bring the issue of climate change to the forefront and persuade or refute the claims of global warming. At the end of your assignment the class will either want to be personally invested or completely disinterested in the climate change debate. Do your best to deliver your message to persuade them to believe it or not.
Why is your organisation suddenly concerned about climate change? A week ago, you received an urgent letter from a concerned stakeholder stating that your organisation needs to do something about climate change before it ruins your organisations reputation. You are aware that your company hasn’t instituted any green initiatives and will soon become under pressure to change this. Your organisation recently came under fire for fracking in an environmentally protected area. After reading this letter you are moved to respond to this definitive stakeholder’s plea.
Assignment Instructions: • Decide if your organisation believes or refutes the claims of climate change. • Frame your message to validate your argument. • You must use eight or more academic references to substantiate your dispute. • You have a choice to do this assignment by yourself as the Communication Manager of your organisation or you can do this assignment in groups of five. If you are more than FIVE people in your communication department, you will be penalised. • Review the five different formats (below) and pick the format that you feel your organisation should use to deliver your framed message.
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You can submit your climate change deliberation in ONE the following formats: • A ten-minute video with a launch plan: create a documentary style video that clearly and concisely frames your climate change debate. At the end of the video you need to accredit the sources you read to develop your framed message. If you are doing this task in a group each member of the group needs to be share their thoughts on climate change during the video. Detail how you plan to launch this video to the public to increase interaction. Load your video to YouTube and submit the link via Moodle.
• A 2-page essay: After reading the letter on climate change you decided to put a proposal together for senior management. This task involves writing a 2-page essay detailing your argument on climate change. You need to substantiate in the beginning of your essay if you are for or against this cause. The body of the essay should reference all the substantiating evidence to deny or support the cause. Your conclusion needs to persuade the Senior Management of your organisation to either ignore or join the cause. • An infographic with a 500-word description at the bottom of the graphic, accompanied by a 500word media pitch and a stakeholder plan: After reading the swaying letter you decide that your climate change argument needs to graphically represented for Senior Management to truly understand the vast implications. You will need to create a 500-word pitch to the Senior Management persuading them that each corporate has a role to play. On the following page, present your infographic on with a 500-word blurb describing your climate change argument. You will need to source as much data on climate change as possible to create this informative and educational infographic. This infographic must co-ordinate this data in an easy to read layout. On the last page of your project you will need to create a list of stakeholders that you plan to send this infographic to, hence the 500-word pitch on the first page of this project.
• An opinion piece with a stakeholder plan: After reading the compelling letter you decide that your organisation has a vital role to play in climate change. As an organisation you decide to write an opinion piece that highlights your expert opinion and the role organisations should play in climate change. This opinion piece becomes your industry leading thought and your aim is to have this piece published in at least five key newspapers across the country. You will need to write a 500-word motivation (pitch to the journalist) with the opinion piece detailing your climate change findings. This profound statement must frame a clear message and have a strong call to action. At the end of your opinion piece you need to attach your stakeholder engagement plan to detail who you intend on sending this thought leadership piece to.
• A children’s book with a launch plan: After reading the letter you believe that this is a perfect opportunity to develop an educational campaign that aims on teaching the future generation about climate change. This will form part of your organisations Corporate Social Investment projects. You believe that the best way to deliver this message is by creating a children’s book. Your task involves creating a 15-page story book that aims to teach children about the negative and positive ramifications of climate change. Your children’s book should have images or drawings attached to the story, please accredit these artists. The last page should give the kids tips on how they can become eco-warriors. This framed message should inspire the next generation of activists. Once you have completed your book, attach a 1-page plan of how you propose to launch your book to your target market.
A quick lesson on framed messages: In a nutshell, models of framing assume that messages consist of three parts: the activation of an overall frame in terms of certain keywords of formulations, the manifest or argument as part that framed message, or the connection with deep culturally shared categories of understanding that supports and legitimises that framed message. A good example of framing works with how climate change has been framed within public and policy debates.
The message of climate change can be broken up into three frames of relevance: 1. The political view, climate change is uncertain, so no drastic action is required, 2. Climate change calls for countries and industries to invest in renewable energy. This will halt coal, oil and other multi-billion dollar industries. The views of climate change conflict with these rich tycoon’s personal economic interest as they stand to make money off the destruction and depletion of our natural resources. Instead these industries and individuals choose to believe that climate change is merely a theory that aims to upset economic growth. 3. Climate change in this instance demands immediate action and we need to do something about this global crisis today.
The issue of climate change is framed in different ways, this ensures that the messages appeal to your underlying cultural beliefs. For the message to hit home, you as a comminutor need to research metaphors, create allusions and real-life examples that ultimately trigger a new way of thinking about climate change. You
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are therefore tasked with selecting and highlighting certain dimensions of climate change and through these well-structured arguments you need to refute the claims or convince us to do our part to prevent climate change.
For motivation on how to structure your argument watch the globally acclaimed National Geographic documentary – Before the Flood. Link to https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLivjPDlt6ApToQx3tYIte0BFuJpaXw_Q_ full playlist that makes up the Before the Flood documentary. Before the Flood also has an official website that encourages ecowarriors around the world to act https://www.beforetheflood.com/act/.
Watch each of the nine videos listed below to develop your effective messages that will either persuade us to join or dismiss climate change debate: • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9xFFyUOpXo&index=9&list=PLivjPDlt6ApToQx3tYIte0BFuJpaXw_ Q_ • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dxAgt9XXPU&index=7&list=PLivjPDlt6ApToQx3tYIte0BFuJpaXw_ Q_ • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKZ009hSu4&list=PLivjPDlt6ApToQx3tYIte0BFuJpaXw_Q_&index=8 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia5fMomBXbE&index=5&list=PLivjPDlt6ApToQx3tYIte0BFuJpaXw_ Q_ • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZm_NohNm6I&index=4&list=PLivjPDlt6ApToQx3tYIte0BFuJpaXw_ Q_ • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNkfKH8bZD8&list=PLivjPDlt6ApToQx3tYIte0BFuJpaXw_Q_&index =3 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Jk4xxaYt0&list=PLivjPDlt6ApToQx3tYIte0BFuJpaXw_Q_&index= 2 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2XVw0STQ2I&list=PLivjPDlt6ApToQx3tYIte0BFuJpaXw_Q_&index =1 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UDL5VqPEXY&list=PLivjPDlt6ApToQx3tYIte0BFuJpaXw_Q_&inde x=6
ASSIGNMENT CONSIDERATIONS • Analyse the task in detail before you choose your desired format (video, essay, infographic, opinion piece or children’s book). • Check that you have read all the instructions under each format. Each task demands a different set of requirements, so be sure to check that you have completed each of these requirements. • Quotations for published work should take up no more than 10% of your assignment. Make sure that quotations and citations are referenced consistently and correctly throughout the essay or at the end of your video, infographic, thought leadership piece or children’s book. • It is assumed that students are thoroughly aware of University rules regarding PLAGIARISM, cheating and fraud, and are aware of the consequences of engaging in any of these illegal activities. • Be prepared to draft and redraft your arguments. Ask a friend to read your work before you submit. This exercise will help to improve your grammar, spelling, and the logic of your argument. • All assignments should be submitted to Turnitin and NO hardcopies will be accepted. • Assignments with a 0-25% similarity index will be accepted; • Assignments with a 26-100% similarity will receive a zero mark. Students may resubmit, but the assignment will be marked out of 50 and not 100. • Please ensure that you proofread your work and follow the referencing guide you have been given on MOODLE under this unit.
ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES • Have a margin of 2.54 cm all the way round; • Be typed in a legible 11pt. font such as Arial or Times New Roman; • Be 1.5 –spaced; • Be accurately and consistently referenced, using Harvard or In-Text referencing. • Have numbered headings and subheadings to structure your essay, video, and infographic assignment; • Have a ‘Title Page’ listing your name, student number, unit name and code, tutorial times and day, title of the assignment, format of the assignment (video, infographic, essay, press release or children’s book), word count (excluding references, TOC), • Have a ‘Table of Contents’, page numbers and a reference list (NOT a bibliography);
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• DO NOT INCLUDE ANY PAGE BORDERS, BOXES AND/OR CLIPART; • Accredited images need to be present in the infographic, opinion piece and the children book format. • Spell-check your work using a South African dictionary (not an American dictionary). E.g.: ‘organise’ as opposed to ‘organize.’ • Indicate the word count of your assignment. Please don’t go over the specified word count, you will be penalised for this. • PLEASE NOTE A minimum of eight sources are required for each format (video, essay, infographic, opinion piece and children’s book). • ONLY academic sources are acceptable, hence NO dictionaries, Wikipedia articles and Internet articles (unless they are PDF files of identifiable sources) are acceptable. Use Google Scholar and library sources. • Your essay assignment should include an introduction, strong argument and conclusion. • You must read and check the ‘Plagiarism Declaration’ on Moodle.
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