I have attached the documents that contains the instructions for the homework.It is a crisis speech outline. I attached the assignment instructions, a sample of what it might look like just for guidance and lastly I attached an excerpt of the textbook for further guidance.
CRISIS ASSIGNMENT CMP 2201 - CRISIS COMMUNICATION ASSIGNMENT Restoring Organizational Image While Protecting Public Interests Incident: “Thirty-five line employees at your mid-size company have been demanding wage increases and benefit enhancements. They show up on Tuesday morning not to work, but to picket. There’s news media everywhere.” AUDIENCE: Assume that you are an organization spokesperson responding to a specific organizational crisis. Your audience consists of various television and other media representatives (newspaper, TV, radio, etc.). Depending on the nature of your organization and the scope of the crisis, you can assume they represent a mix of local, state, regional, national, and international media sources. TOPIC: Your goal is to create a briefing informed by researching similar organizational crises. Consider organizational crises such as those identified in the Crisis Communication chapter in your text, or simply search for these kinds of situation online. Thoroughly consider what similar organizations may have done or said in response to the crisis, and any critique or praise that analysts may have made about the organization's actions. Research will help you form the backbone of your crisis briefing, but you are NOT to just parrot what another organization said and did; you are to come up with something original and BETTER than what somebody else did. PRESENTATION: Assume the role of a corporate representative for the organization you proposed in the preceding assignment, and create a media briefing that responds to the crisis using image restoration strategies covered in Chapter 13. Select the strategies that are most appropriate for the circumstances you have discovered (primarily your understanding of audience perceptions) in your research. This is a persuasive presentation. Your goal is to mitigate organizational image damage while protecting affected publics. Therefore, it is vital that you model solid, unbiased support from independent information sources for the image restoration strategies you use. You may use only notes for your delivery, and you will be showing these notes as part of the video following the presentation. Manuscripts may not be used. STRUCTURE: All crisis briefings should conform to the N-A-R persuasive speaking structure. Because of the nature of this speech, there is a probability that the refutation section will change into the form of “preemptory statements” which will answer concerns likely to be raised by the media. If you deny anything in your briefing, though, clearly, you’ll need to do it in your refutation section! Remember: your goal is to decrease uncertainty. TIME LIMITS: Your speech is to be 5 minutes in length. You should aim for 5, anyway – certainly not less than 4 and not more than say, 5:15 or 5:30. Effective time management will be considered in the speech grade. Plan carefully and practice thoroughly. WRITTEN SUBMISSION: Compose a complete statement (in outline form) for submission to turnitin for the assignment. You will use only notes for your delivery, and you will be recording those notes at the end of the presentation; not doing so will lose one letter grade. You can refer to the sample manuscript outline in Chapter 13, but the manuscript you upload to turnitin.com must also include/illustrate the following: ● Use a standard, easily readable font size and style. ● Insert clear headings in the manuscript to designate the different sections of the speech (i.e., Introduction, Narrative, Arguments, Refutation, Conclusion). ● Double-space the entire document, and use standard one-inch margins all around. ● Identify each image restoration strategy used in the arguments section of the manuscript. Do this by inserting IN RED the name of each strategy used in brackets immediately following the text representing that strategy. (This is so I can see that you understand what strategies you are using.) ● Identify transitions between divisions and between main points. ● Identify all supporting material and source citations. COVER PAGE: Create a cover page(s) to be included with the manuscript that includes the following information: 1. Your name. 2. The name of the organization you are representing. 3. A concise single sentence statement identifying the crisis situation (provided by the assignment. 4. The approximate date of the crisis itself and the hypothetical date the crisis briefing would ideally take place. 5. A thorough paragraph that clearly explains what strategies you will use and why you chose them. 6. You also want to justify what you consider to be the two most important image restoration strategies used in the briefing. Note: Do not choose a hypothetical briefing date that is too close to the actual crisis situation. You will need to give yourself some “distance” from the event so that it will be possible to locate and include various written sources as supporting material (see below). Responses immediately following crisis events are almost-always limited to unsupported and unverified speculation. However, don’t pick a date that is too far removed from the crisis. If you take too long to respond, it will seem like you don’t care about the crisis or its victims. SUPPORTING MATERIAL: Use a small amount of supporting material (statistics, testimonies, examples) throughout your written presentation to clarify, defend, and validate your points. This support must come from three highly credible, independent sources. You will likely rely on reputable news outlets. For example, when representing a school district in the wake of an active shooter situation, one might try to differentiate the crisis by stating that “the mean reported age of shooters is 17” (chds.us, 2018), and in this rare case the shooter’s age was 11. Or, you may submit that mass shootings have become increasingly common and “more than half of mass shootings [57%] have occurred in the past ten years” (Nat’l. Crime Victim Rights Bulletin, 2018). Information originating from your own organization (comments from members of your organization, information on your organizational web site, etc.) do not count as independent support. Sources of support material must be clearly and thoroughly cited orally for your audience in the speech. Prepare a separate reference page of support sources (only those sources specifically cited in the speech) using APA style format, and include it with your manuscript. PRESENTATIONAL STYLE: Deliver the briefing in an extemporaneous “press conference” presentation. Speakers must “own” their material, establish sustained eye contact, incorporate gestures, and develop a natural sounding vocal quality. Again -- assume this is a presentation to a media audience (including television media). In such cases, the “target” audience is composed of media and – thus -- media viewers. Sample of Crisis Briefing for guidance.docx Crisis Briefing SAMPLE OF CRISIS OUTLINE (To be used as a guide DO NOT COPY) Company name: IC&Co. There has been an incident of racial discrimination and profiling in our company. Crisis date: Monday, April 28th, 2020 Briefing date: Friday, May 8th, 2020. For this presentation, I will be using three image restoration strategies. They are Mortification; This is a strategy where an organization admits their fault and begs forgiveness and if the audience finds the apology sincere, they can forgive that organization. I chose this because, with the case that I am dealing with which is racism, I believe that the best way to approach it initially is to accept that we are at fault and apologize. The key here is to give the audience our sincerity rather than trying to prove our innocence. Bolstering: This strategy involves relating positive attributes of the organization that might mitigate the negative consequences of the crisis. I used this because I want my audience to know that we do take our company values seriously. This will likely release uncertainty about how we train our staff and how well we value our company’s purpose. Corrective Action: Vow to restore the situation to the state it was before the crisis or to prevent the recurrence of the crisis. I chose to use this strategy because the case that I am addressing is an internal affair in the company, therefore, then I should give my audience proof of what I am doing to make sure that the incident will not repeat itself from our end. The two most important image restoration strategies are Mortification and Corrective Action. This is because of the case that I am dealing with involves a racial minority. The fact that there was evidence that proved that it was my company, I ought to apologize to my audience and the affected party. Also, I have to take actions that will correct and prevent the problem. Introduction 1 Crisis Briefing I. Gain attention: We are now a couple of days into the incident involving one of our company staff and a client and we have been discussing measures to help us deal with it and prevent further incidents. II. Establish credibility: My name is Thelma and I am the corporate representative for the organization overseeing the current incident. A. I have been working on the case for the past two weeks; investigating and gathering evidence. B. In order to handle this case, there have been discussions among my team members and the management team of the company to address this problem, (transition): After discussing with the team, we have made some decisions and taken a few measures to prevent a similar case in the future and protect our clients. Narrative Recently, a case of racial profiling in our company has been brought to light. It was between our employees and the client. There has been a lot of media involvement in the case. We are dedicated to ensuring that our clients are offered the best services and we have a zero-tolerance to discrimination of any kind. We understand that there is uncertainty among our customers and shareholders about our company’s values and this has not only cost us customer trust but the company image as well. I am ashamed that this incident occurred at all and we are working hard to get to the bottom of this incident to set things straight. On Monday, April 28, we learned of an incident where one of our employees made racially offensive comments to a client. From what we have gathered from witnesses and other evidence, we will take full responsibility and we are moving on to investigate this case within the company and will provide details and results as needed. (Transition) : Now, that I have given you a background on the situation, I will go into detail on how we are dealing with the situation. 2 Crisis Briefing Arguments I. (Mortification) I would like to begin by apologizing to all our clients for causing this uncertainty. A. I am regretful to our clients that trusted and believed in our company’s mission statement and values. B. I understand that there is no excuse to justify this behavior. C. It is our responsibility as the management of the company to thoroughly screen employees and I am sorry that we defaulted in that aspect. (Transition) : Despite my deep regret, I believe strongly in our values and we