- (Strategic) Public Relations
Public Relations as major of MS program is developed to recognize that in today's society, public relations professionals are employed in a wide variety of settings in business, government, and nonprofit organizations. The goal of the curriculum is to educate students for careers in communication-based activities in such organizations. Students are prepared not just for entry-level positions, but for advancement in their selected fields.
The statement of SPR in USC says as follows. Success in contemporary public relations requires a sophisticated understanding of the communication processes and ethical standards that govern interactions between institutions and their stakeholders. As a graduate student in strategic public relations, you’ll absorb the concepts underlying modern PR while honing your strategic planning, writing, media relations and communication skills. You’ll also build an understanding of the day-to-day work of PR professionals and work on case studies involving real-world problems.
That is to say, Public Relations is the most direct major to push oneself in the PR career. Studying it as major is good to learn fundamental knowledge and professional methods and skills to use in the future.
- Integrated Marketing Communications
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), according to The American Marketing Association, is “a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.” Marketing Power Dictionary Integrated marketing communication can be defined as a holistic approach to promote buying and selling in the digital economy. This concept includes many online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry analyst relations billboard, radio, and television.
IMC belongs to the category of marketing which focuses on promoting some subject with real shapes to raise profit for firms. The core of IMC is to combine all resources and channels someone could think out and do branding. Event-planning is weaken in this field which is the main part of PR.
- Cross-cultural Communication, Intercultural Communication, Global Communication
Cross-cultural communication (also frequently referred to as intercultural communication) is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds endeavour to communicate.
This field is more likely to do research in the sub-field of International Relations. It is very important to understanding the cultures in different areas and backgrounds you studied in, both commons and differences. Though it focuses on communication, it seems to be more like research about IR.
There is an ambiguous boundary between domestic PR field and western PR field referring to the hot topics and developing trend. Why ambiguous?
First, there’s two commons in the trend of developing, in other words, world trend. Those are high tech and new media using on PR and globalization. The former one follows the improvement of technology and the explosion of information. The latter one hints us that to promote Chinese PR industry booming and booming, to cooperate with foreign PR agencies and learn from them is the key.
Second, the different trends for China and the West shouldn’t be neglected. For China, to formalize the whole industry is the main task in PR. So learning from the West and thinking about the developing route and model is what should be paid attention to. The hot topic is still the methods and skills to serve for clients like how to rebuild the image of a corporate in front of the public. Although research on dealing with crisis is important and emerging, but for most domestic firms it is beyond their abilities, while PR in the West considers it as the most important topic and mission they should achieve.
References
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China Public Relations Website,
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China International Public Relations Association Website,
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UsaToday Website,
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Latest news on Edelman.com,
USC Annenberg School of Communication Website,