Public Relations

Course Description:

This course will provide candidates with an introduction to the study of public relations: the profession, the process, the publics and the practice. Students will learn how public relations operates in organizations as well as about its impact on publics and its functions in society.

The profession of public relations continues to emerge as a major force in the global society. The practice of public relations has undergone evolutionary changes in the past few years to Internet – driven technology. This major source provides, for the first time, a way for organizations to communicate directly with a variety of audiences, often through the world, instantly. Globalization of world wide markets and organizational restructuring are two more powerful influences on the practice of public relations.

These critical changes in globalization, technology and organizational structure lend increasing importance to the management function of public relations. Practitioners are no longer mere technicians who shape and transmit messages from their organizations. They are professionals who shape the relationships an organization has with its various constituencies. Public relation practitioners must possess the communications expertise and social sensitivity necessary to enable organizations to adapt to the changing environment.

So, the public relation practitioners must bring not only all of the traditional communication skills to their broadened role, bit they must bring the ability to research and understand problems, to plan public relations programs, to create effective messages using the latest technologies, and evaluate the effectiveness of these programs. The goals of this course is to provide the tools for public relation practice while also establishing a historical context, a theoretical foundation, and legal and ethical frameworks for the profession

This course provides a foundation for those planning public relations careers as well as very valuable knowledge for those planning to continue their career in organizational communication and effective media strategies.

Another very important purpose of this course is to learn how to write for public relations, because after all, the basic form of communications is still the written word. All forms of writing for public relations have one thing in common: they should be written well. As to purpose, a public elations piece generally is product for one of two reasons: to inform or to persuade. The medium which is chose to delivery the messages will also dictate style and format, but all public relation s wring attempts to establish positive relations between an organization and its various publics, usually through image building techniques

Course Objectives:

By the end of this course candidates will be able to:

• Define public relations
• Describe public relations principles and practices
• Identify an organization’s key publics or target audiences
• Describe and apply the public relations process
• Solve public relations problems within an ethical and legal context
• Describe various contexts for public relations
• Why good writing is important to public relations professional
• The most often –used tools of public relations writing and how they differ
• The process of public relation writing