answer the following questions individually. This is worth 400 points (40% of your course grade).
1. In the documentary film The Corporation, the filmmakers apply the World Health Organization’s Manual of Mental Disorders to the corporate form. Relate these six symptoms of psychopathy to the dialectical ethics standards of William Rawlins and Thomas Nilsen’s significant choice ethical interpersonal communication. How do corporations as currently constructed fail these communication guidelines? (75 points; this answer should be 1½ – 2½ double-spaced pages in length)
2. In The Corporation, the filmmakers identify Lucy Hughes as the CEO of Initiative Media Worldwide. She talks about corporations manipulating children so that they nag their parents more effectively. She states, “Our goal is to move product.” Ms. Hughes states that she doesn’t know if that’s ethical or not. Using Em Griffin’s ethic for Christian evangelism, frame an argument to either give Ms. Hughes proof that such a strategy is ethical—or not. (50 points, this answer should be 1 – 2 double-spaced pages in length)
3. During the section on “Unsettling Accounts,” the filmmakers present a narrative of two Fox reporters who were fired for refusing to suppress a story critical of Monsanto and rBGH (rBST). Using your knowledge of Agenda Setting theory, Warren Bovée’s journalistic questions, and Dennis Gouran’s conception of the five considerations of the ethically sensitive discussant, take and justify a position of the ethicality of Fox’s corporate position in this case. (50 points, this answer should be 1 – 2 double-spaced pages in length)
4. The Corporation filmmakers present a clip from Ray Anderson’s speech at an Emerging Issues Forum at NC State near the end of the film (about 2:14:00). Using Joan Tronto’s four ethical elements of care and Sonja Foss and Cindy Griffin’s invitational rhetoric, how can corporations be restructured to meet Anderson’s proposed principles? (75 points; this answer should be 1½ – 2½ double-spaced pages in length)
5. The conception that branding is not an advertising function, but rather a production function, is presented in The Corporation. The filmmakers use Celebration, Florida as evidence for their position. Apply the work of dialogic theorists and the guidelines of applying dialogical standards from Ethics in Human Communication or Alinsky’s situational perspective to declare either the ethicalness or unethicalness of branding. (50 points, this answer should be 1 – 2 double-spaced pages in length)
6. In the section on “Perception Management,” an executive from Burston-Marsteller states that public relations’ job in a corporation isn’t to advertise products (a truism), but rather to build perceptions to meet objectives, serve publics, build business, and change the way we live. Using the positions of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Sissela Bok, Charles Redding, Sandra Petronio, Saul Alinsky, and the questions about ethics in public relations from our class discussion on organizational ethics, what is the duty of the individual communication professional in the modern corporation? (100 points, this answer should be 2 – 3 double-spaced pages in length)
