2010 - Public Relations Society of America

Harnessing the Web for Teaching Writing for the Web:
A New Media Makeover of the Public Relations Writing Course Pedagogy
Beth A. Kuch and Abbey Blake Levenshus
University of Maryland
Bkuch@umd.edu and ABL@umd.edu
New media technologies have exploded in recent years, changing the landscape
for public relations practitioners, educators and students. Social or new media are
generally viewed as Internet-based tools and platforms that allow for user-generated
content and two-way communication. In their fifth annual survey of public relations
practitioners, Wright and Hinson (2010) found that 85% of practitioners reported that
social media had changed the way their organizations communicated. Ninety-nine
percent of practitioners stated they interact with some aspect of blogs or social media in a
given workday. While public relations practitioners have acknowledged the potential
benefits of using new media to achieve organizational public relations objectives, many
report slow adoption and struggling to incorporate new media to its fullest potential
(Avery et al., 2010; Jo & Kim, 2003; Seltzer & Mitrook, 2007). Today’s students, part of
the “Millennial generation,” have grown up with the Internet. According to recent
research on Millenials by the Pew Internet and American Life project (Lenhart, Purcell,
Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010), 93% go online; 72% use social networking sites like Facebook
and MySpace; and a third update their statuses on platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Despite personal use, students may have little knowledge of how to use these platforms
and tools in a strategic organizational capacity.
Public relations educators, therefore, face a difficult challenge of finding
innovative ways to teach this digital generation (Swalbe, 2009). In addition to pedagogy,
educators are also challenged to update public relations curriculum and course content to
equip students to succeed in the new media infused workplace (Barry, 2005; Gower &
Jung-Yul, 2001). New media skills must not come at the expense of core public relations
education tenets such as writing and strategic planning. Even innovative educators face
barriers to making changes, including limited faculty support, funding, equipment, and
time (Davenport, Fico, & DeFleur, 2002; Voakes, Beam, & Ogan, 2003). Some educators
are working to meet the challenges through experiential learning. This paper analyzes
those efforts and offers suggestions for a public relations course focused on writing new
media pieces while using new media to deliver course content.
Method
Using the top three search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
(The Nielsen Company, 2010), we searched for syllabi for college courses focusing on
public relations and new media. The search terms included “public relations,” “syllabus,
“social media” and “new media.” The top 100 links found by each search engine were
evaluated to determine if it linked to a full syllabus, which included lecture topics for a
communication course with a significant focus on social media. “Communication
courses” were identified as public relations, journalism, or mass communication. A
“significant focus” was demonstrated by having more than two class sessions discussing
new media. The search resulted in 11 syllabi for courses taught between Summer 2009
and Spring 2010 or scheduled to be taught in Fall 2010 at U.S. universities. A content
analysis of the syllabi was performed to determine if course objectives, lecture topics and
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