Facebook case study

Assignments

• A boutique strategy consultancy with academic expertise in intra- and inter-organizational power and politics. Specifically, you have been asked by the conference organizers to focus your presentation on using your academic expertise to address the following questions: Who are the most relevant and/or influential stakeholders for Facebook to consider as it formulates its policies in response to accusations of potentially unhelpful influence in how people are informed? Given your stakeholder analysis above, how should Facebook go about deciding how to balance these different interests in its decision-making?
• Brad Parscale’s team. Parscale served as digital media director for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and senior adviser for data and digital operations for Donald Trump’s 2020 digital campaign. The group will present Parscale, his approach to social media in general and Facebook in particular, and how they collaborated with Facebook’s teams. They will also present some of the critics that were expressed against Parscale’s methods, along with his response.

Academic perspectives

• A group reads and analyses Frederick (1979). The group will present the article’s thesis and main arguments, trying to illustrate with concrete examples as much as possible. After objectively synthesizing the text, some critical perspective will be given, based on other academic material (from the group’s own research), and the conclusion will express the group’s position regarding the thesis of the article.
• A group reads and analyses Jamali (2008). The group will present the article’s thesis and main arguments, trying to illustrate with concrete examples as much as possible. After objectively synthesizing the text, some critical perspective will be given, based on other academic material (from the group’s own research), and the conclusion will express the group’s position regarding the thesis of the article.