Public Relations

Management and Organisation of Public Relations

• Public relations definitions
• External environment
• Internal environment
• Systems theory
• Location of public relations department
• Future of public relations department

Role of Public Relations Practitioners

• Types of public relations practitioners
• Role of the communicator
• Skills of ideal practitioner
• Role of theory in practice
• Education, professionalism and research

Media Context of Contemporary Public Relations and Journalism

• Contemporary media context: the UK media industry
• Theories of media
• Regulating the media
• Issues for public relations arising from the global media environment
• Ethics of journalism and public relations

Public Relations and Democracy

• Conditions for representative democracy
• Elections and voting
• Criticisms of modern democracy
• Pressure groups and democracy
• Democracy and multilevel governance
• Public relations and modern democracy

Corporate Social Responsibility

• The social responsibilities of organisations
• Community and environmental responsibilities
• The demands of public opinion
• Discharging the organisation’s social responsibilities
• Ethics and business practice
• Regulatory frameworks

International Public Relations

• Definition of international public relations
• Factors and driving forces behind internationalisation
• Global and local approaches to international public relations
• International public relations agency networks
• Public relations as a global profession
• Public relations for supranational organisations

Public Relations as Planned Communications

• Systems theories: emergence of public relations research
• Diversity in public relations
• Systems context of planning
• Setting objectives
• Identifying publics
• Messages, content, strategy and tactics
• Timescales and resources

Public Relations Research and Evaluation

• Context of research in public relations
• Designing research
• Research methods
• Designing research instruments
• Research applications
• Evaluation of public relations campaigns

Audiences and Corporate Image

• Passive and active audiences
• Stakeholders and publics
• Organisational public relations
• Organisational reputation, image and identity
• Personality and culture
• Organisational identity, strategy and process

Ethics and Professionalism in Public Relations

• Importance of ethics and professionalism in public relations
• Ethics and morality
• Ethical theories and ethical issues in public relations
• Ethical decision-making models and their application

Media Relations

• Role of media relations
• Media relations principles
• Negotiated news: media relations in practice
• Media partnerships
• Media relations techniques

Internal Communications

• Purpose of internal communication
• Segmenting internal publics
• Organisations: culture, leadership and strategic change
• Communication channels
• Employee perspective
• Ethical communication

Issues and Crisis Management

• Introduction to issues management
• Context of issues management
• Action planning: a framework for managing issues
• Crisis public relations management
• Communicating during a crisis
• The internet and public relations crisis management
• Key principles in crisis management

Managing Community Involvement Programmes and Consumer Public Relations

• Corporate Community Involvement (CCI) programmes
• Employees and community programmes
• Cause-related programmes
• Evaluating community programmes
• Consumer public relations: tools and techniques
• Branding and value of public relations

Business-to-Business and Financial Public Relations

• Core principles of business-to-business public relations
• Trade journals and journalists
• Building corporate reputation
• Scope and contexts of public affairs
• Knowledge, skills, behaviour and ethics
• Financial public relations practice
• Emerging issues and trends

Integrated Marketing Communications and Sponsorship

• Strategic marketing communications planning
• Branding and integrated marketing communications
• Integrating the marketing communications mix
• Introduction to scope and context of sponsorship
• Management of sponsorship
• Features and characteristics of sponsorship
• ‘Emotional marketing’ and the emerging sponsorship age

Corporate Communications and Public Sector Communications

• Context and principles of corporate communications
• Interface of corporate communications and overall corporate strategy
• Corporate communication objectives
• Theories of public communication
• Central, local government and health sector communication
• Communication planning framework

Campaigning Organisations and Pressure Groups

• Types of campaigning organisation
• Campaign tactics
• People, politics and globalisation
• Building and evaluating consensus
• Practical guidelines for campaigning public relations

Arts, Leisure, Entertainment and Celebrity Public Relations

• Overview of the creative industries
• Role of public relations in the creative industries
• Public relations objectives, strategies and tactics for arts organisations
• Heroes, celebrity and the global celebrity industry
• Reasons for ‘buying into’ celebrities
• Development and maintenance of celebrity image

Future of Public Relations

• Future trends and issues for public relations
• Campaigning and pressure groups
• Internationalisation of public relations
• Practitioner roles and professionalism in public relations
• Specialisation of public relations practice
• Media fragmentation