This is for a 400 level Sociology of Organizations Class. The object of this assignment is to write a blog post using a topic of our choice. I decided to choose the 2021 Olympics during the time of Covid. This blog post will need to dig deep within the organizational components of producing the Olympics during a time of Covid. It will need to address current information on the challenges, current status, and how a multitude of organizations are working together to continue this long standing tradition with the challenge of the Covid pandemic. Below is instructions from the professor. I am also attaching some different literature on some of the what we have been going over in class in order for you to include a theoretical example. In this case it would be the following 3 concepts: New institutionalism, Population Ecology, or Networks when bringing up Theoretical Evidence. (see attached) Only choose one concept to focus on but if you can incorporate any of the others feel free. I will let you decide what is the best to use to refer to. I would kind of like to take the stand that holding the Olympics without proper measures put in place by organizations could have detrimental effects on the world population. Discuss the measures being taken and how these organizations are working together and what are the constraints and influences on decision makers. You should incorporate the World Health Organization, Olympic Committee, and the Japanese Government, as these I think would be the main organizations to discuss. If you happen to find other Organizations that are working on this please incorporate them. You may use any outside references you like. Can be news articles, peer reviewed, information posted on the organizations’ websites but please just make sure they are credible. You may reference the articles attached as well if you wish. Please see instructor’s instructions below. Use the instructor’s links
For this semester, students are to write blog posts. Each blog post should be between 800-1000 words (roughly). Blog posts should present an argument about a topic of choice in a clear, concise way that is grounded in theoretical and empirical material. By theoretical, I mean that it should draw on one of the themes we discussed in class. Empirically, you can draw on a concern or something of interest to you. It can be a current event or social problem or something in the past. The topic is open, it just has to touch on a theme related to the course. Almost anything you can think of has an organizational component.
Blog posts should be structured in a way that introduces the main concern of the piece and states the argument that you intend to present. From there, lay out your argument in concise terms, making reference to the materials on which youre basing your argument. You can create hyperlinks in MS Word using the Insert>Hyperlink function. Link to web materials, e.g., websites, news sources, data sources, etc. in the text. List your references at the end of the piece.
In grading the assignment, I will be looking for clarity and strength of argument. As such, your arguments should be grounded in the material as well as your topic and well-referenced. Your post does not need to be polemical, but it should take a stand. It should be worth sharing with the world. Because the pieces are designed to be brief, youll have to limit the scope of your argument fairly narrowly. For models of how best to do this, you can look at the opinion pieces on national newspapers, like the NY Times or Washington Post.
For examples of blog posts, see the Organizational Dynamics Blog: https://organizationaldynamics.wordpress.com/
There are also several sociology-themed blogs you can check out. Here are some of my favorites:
https://scatter.wordpress.com/
https://marketspowerandculture.wordpress.com/
https://kieranhealy.org/blog/
https://contexts.org/
https://mobilizingideas.wordpress.com/
