Thursday, January 24, 2008

A Lecture on our 2nd Semester's Course Outline by the Course Leader, Pam Williams

The 2nd semester began in earnest on the 16th of January and almost all my classmates were present for lectures. It was nice to see them back from the Christmas holidays, looking fit, healthy and quite refreshed. They seemed to be in high spirit and well prepared for the semester ahead.

Today's class was used in introducing us to this semester's core courses, which are Public Communication and Public Relations issues and our individual dissertations. I learnt about the timetable for the dissertation class and what is expected of me through out the rest of the course. Hopefully, it should be a busy and challenging semester, but I look forward to giving it my best shot.

The course leader also led the interactive discussion on 'the critical report on a PR campaign pitch document assignment' which we wrote during the Christmas break. Personally, I found the discussion very useful and informative because it has broaden my knowledge of how to critically assess a PR campign pitch document and any document for that matter. I now understand how best to write a critical report which will be very helpful when I begin my career in PR.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

"Regulation and the future of practice" by Alison Theaker

Today, I read the above topic in 'The Public Relations Handbook' by Alison Theaker. I must admit, the topic was really intriguing to read. It re-echoed most of my thoughts and predictions for the future regulation of PR in UK through effective self-regulation by the different specialised areas.
In addition, I learnt that, a recent "PRCA council dinner concluded that self-regulation was preferred to statutory regulation" (p.327). Another interesting comment I read was made by Adrian Wheeler, a former chairman of the PRCA from 1999/2000 and currently a board member of the CIPR with over 30 years of experience in the PR industry. He feels that, regulation is important to PR, especially in lobbying and financial PR, but agreed 'that self- regulation by the professional associations is the way forward'.