Assignment: Two short individual blogs
A maximum of 1000 words (500 words per short blog) excluding references.

For this assignment, you are required to write two short blog posts based on a concept or theory you have read about from the essential reading material listed in the module outline for lectures week 2 up to and including week 5. You can choose the nature of your blog posts but an appropriate approach would be to discuss how the theory or concept has been applied within a marketing/company scenario. Other approaches could consider how a theory or concept helps to explain what has been observed in the marketplace. Alternatively, you could start with a topic from the media or a phenomenon that interests you and explore the topic from a theoretical perspective. Some suggestions, but you are free to choose your own, the type of topics and a possible link to theory or concept are provided below.
Ensure that you include references to at least 3 sources outside of the assigned reading (at least one of these sources must be a journal article) for each short blog post. You should focus your blog posts on one or two aspects from the reading. That is, for example a single emotion (anger) or a combination of discussing anger and appraisal theory. You should cite appropriate sources throughout your blog post using Harvard referencing format. Your blogs can be written in the first person but should contain reasoned arguments drawn from evidence rather than your own experiences. Please give your blog piece a title (not included in word count). You may also use images, figures, and tables which do not count in the word limit given.
Possible topics:
• Veganism and identity – is it more about personal identity or social identity?
• Why have consumers fallen out of love with department stores? (could incorporate material on attitude change)
• A look inside the 2020 Christmas adverts: Emotions….. (see https://www.marketingweek.com/tag/christmas-advertising-2020/). The following questions are useful in evaluating your blog and will form my criteria for
marking.

Substance:

• Has the blog engaged with the topic sufficiently?
• Does it address the topic in a thoughtful, probing way?
• Does it explore fully enough and dig deep enough to get to engaging insights?
• Does it demonstrate critical thinking and analysis?
• Does it employ examples and details to enliven the post and support/illustrate claims?

Presentation/Language:

• Is there a useful title to guide the reader?
• Is the language clear, concise, and easy to understand? Does it avoid pointless repetition?
• Is the writing chunked up into small, accessible, and coherent paragraphs (or is it a long series of sentences that may not follow from one another)?
• Are creative and useful design features included (e.g., headings, pictures, links)?
• Are sentences well-crafted and the writing proofread? (adapted from https://sites.psu.edu/202cjaenicke/blog-assignment/).