The Evaluation Of Public Relations Internship Program

Internship is a period of work experience offered by an employer to give people (usually college students and graduates) exposure to the working environment. It gives them an opportunity to get first-hand experience. The growing need for practical learning led to the emergence of internship. It helps to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience. Internships in any form- paid, unpaid or co-operative learning has now become a standard practice for college students. It has

I do not know much about public relations (PR), but if I can attempt to put it in a single definition it would be the communication or process in connecting to the mass media. The mass media is any consumer, voter or supporter of that particular company or person. When I envision what a person might do in a career in public relations I immediately think of Olivia Pope from ABC’s popular show Scandal. Public relations is involved with creating press releases, curating charities and essentially anything that will helps improve that business’ brand or that party’s’ image significantly. Unlike a management position, public relations comes in and consults during a crisis or scandal that affects the public and leaves when the situation is resolved.

The majority journalists, on the one hand, believe they are initiative in this relationship because PR seems constantly to search for coverage and publicity, thus it seems no need to acknowledge PR officers’ working tactics. On the other hand, some journalists think that their works are always obstructed by some unqualified PR practitioners, who always offer limited and incomplete information without sincerity (ibid, 1989). When asked why keep negative attitude to PR people, the journalists who are interviewed by Coman (2009), explain that firstly the practitioners in the PR world are not censored and selected well so that the reputation of this occupation is impacted by some “rotten apples” (pp, 156). Secondly, the majority journalists recognize that PR industry is full of vigor and vitality, which has great opportunities of development. In regard to present stage, however, Coman (2009) also points out the ill-experienced practitioner who graduated from collages as a freshman, acknowledge a few about the reporters’ needs and the skills of communication. What is more, the information they offer is not clear and less values. Some famous journalists

Public relations has always be present throughout history however over the years, it had different names. Public relations is also known as integrated communication, corporate communication and strategic communication. Public relations is such a natural and vast field that it does not have a precise founder, founding date or nationality (Newsom, 2013). It has been found that in order to understand properly the PR theory, one should look at the evolution of public relations throughout history. The reason being that in order to analyse why some campaigns are more successful than others, it is elemental to analyse how PR was practiced at ancient times. (The Origins Of Public Relations, 2011)

Di Zhang has affiliation with the School of Journalism and Communication, Renmin University of China, China. However his educational background and personal experience surrounding the topic is lacking; conversely enough as an author he was able to make up for that with a broad and all-inclusive article that used the conceptual framework of organizational–public relationship cultivation strategies to quantitatively evaluate how the Chinese government's international media relationship cultivation strategies at news conferences changed from 2001 to 2009 (Zhang,

The purpose of this interview is to see first hand how different people view public relations. Participants were chosen based on their major in order to avoid having only PR majors answering the questions. These interviews were conducted one-on-one in order to avoid biasing the participants’ opinions and views.

“An internship can offer a career-building experience and be a stepping stone to your dream profession”.

The perceived ‘cantankerous’ relationship that characterises the exchanges between public relations professionals and media practitioner’s has been rife since the birth of public relations. The pair is, in its simplest term ‘frenemies’, they do work together, albeit covertly, and are usually hesitant to admit (on the media side) their cooperation. However, there is no absolute trust held between the two since there is a shifting power of control and influence that continually changes, which Fletcher (as cited in Hobsbawn, 2010, p. 64) believes is due to the market value of the particular product that public relations is representing. Media practitioners are often called the ‘watchdogs’ of

Public relations (PR) is the way organizations, companies and individuals communicate with the public and media. A PR specialist communicates with the target audience directly or indirectly through media with an aim to create and maintain a positive image and create a strong relationship with the audience. Examples include press releases, newsletters, public appearances, etc. as well as utilization of the world wide web.

Due to the world's rapid change through advanced technology public relation became more and more a global activity. Nowadays it is one of the fastest-growing

According to Jane Johnston (2007), public relations is defined as “understanding and facilitating the needs of the various publics that surround and interact with an organisation or group”. Also, when it comes to the development of the public relations sphere, there were three crucial clarifications that were formed; controlling publics, responding to publics, and achieving mutually beneficial relationships among all publics (Bivins, 1993).

Internships offer many advantages to college students. First, it is the “best resource to develop the skills employers seek” (Florida International University, 2017). According to the US Department of Labor, the skills set employers most look for are “critical thinking skills, excellent communication skills, and the ability to work in a team” (Occupational Outlook Quaterly, 2016).

Internship is an important and unavoidable component of higher education. In the state of Kentucky, students of universities and institutions of higher education have been facing problems in getting the appropriate and effective internship training.

The theory explains that the value of public relations in organization and society lies in socially responsible managerial decisions and quality organization to public relations. Organisations must behave in ways that solve the problems and satisfy the goals of the stakeholders as well as the management in order to be effective. Good relationship with organisation’s strategic publics is helpful in developing and achieving goals desired by both the organization and its publics, reducing costs of negative publicity, and increasing revenue by providing products and services needed by stakeholders. Practitioners identify publics who are affected by or affect organizational decisions and communicate symmetrically with them to build high quality long term relations.

Only recently being recognized as a discipline in itself, modern day professional public relations practices can trace its roots to the early 1900s where the first public relations firm, the Publicity Bureau, was founded in Boston. In 1923, Austrian-American public relations pioneer, Edward Bernays, identified three fundamental concepts of public relations. In 1984, American theorists, Grunig and Hunt, conceptualized the now-famous four models of public relations and the excellence theory that were generally adopted by public relation agencies across the globe. With so many significant milestones and theories of public relations established in the United States, it stands to reason that public relation practices would naturally adopt a western perspective.