By Karen Freberg, The University of Tennessee
The public relations profession continues to play an essential and changing role in society, requiring the regular reassessment of the education of future public relations practitioners. Academics and practitioners often differ in how they view the public relations field, how they define the discipline, and how they view the major pedagogical approaches. The demands of the current economy and the ever-changing digital environment is challenging public relations practitioners and scholars to constantly evolve their research and practices in the discipline to meet the expectations of their stakeholders.
Having social media incorporated throughout the public relations courses will allow professors to feel more connected and up-to-date with their students. In the process, implementing social media in public relations classes will create a more dynamic, interactive, and forward-thinking learning environment for all parties. Also, understanding new technologies that focuses on how to communicate to various publics like social media does also creates a link to the theoretical foundations of thought (researchers or managers) to the those that are view public relations as a more applied field (practitioners or technicians). [Read more...]