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Purpose and practice: Educating PR professionals for the future

Educating PR professionals for the future

Sonja Verwey
University of Johannesburg
René Benecke
University of Johannesburg
Clarissa Muir
University of Johannesburg
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Purpose and practice: Educating PR professionals for the future. (2022). Communicare: Journal for Communication Studies in Africa, 36(1), 67-78. https://doi.org/10.36615/jcsa.v36i1.1587
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  • Submited: October 13, 2022
  • Published: October 17, 2022

Abstract

Business thinking, engagement with stakeholders, and the practice of public relations have
all been confronted with major paradigmatic shifts – especially as these are contextualized by
environments that are increasingly pluralistic. This has contributed to an important question into
what the education of future public relations practitioners (PRPs) should be so that they can
purposefully and successfully navigate and negotiate the challenges of decision-making – that
are ethical and moral in nature – in the context of complex, and diverse practice. In light of
this, public relations curriculum developers and educators are challenged to address issues of
purpose, values-based practice and education in order to prepare future PRPs for the ethical and
moral challenges that they will encounter. In the South African context this is further complicated
by the recent calls for decolonisation of South African public relations curricula. This conceptual
and exploratory paper addresses the issue of practice in an age of purpose, the changing roles of
public relations practitioners, and the contribution values-based education can make in addressing
demands for revised, and decolonised PR curricula.

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How to Cite
Purpose and practice: Educating PR professionals for the future. (2022). Communicare: Journal for Communication Studies in Africa, 36(1), 67-78. https://doi.org/10.36615/jcsa.v36i1.1587

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