Public Relations MS (PRCC1-GC)

This course provides an overview of the history and evolution of public relations focusing on theories of persuasion and how they can be applied to communication thinking, planning, and execution. The course covers the process of taking ideas from inception to completion and gaining an understanding of how they are applied and implemented in a communication context. Students learn how to monitor for public opinion, generate and evaluate research for target audiences, mobilize teams, and devise solutions for a variety of organizational scenarios. Assessing organizational needs, identifying stakeholders – both internal and external – and crafting messages will be studied and practiced to achieve specific outcomes. Within the context of a communication plan, students will learn to create content and develop a deep understanding of the relationship among digital, social, and traditional media.

Communicators must deal with age-old dilemmas like ethical uses of persuasion in a complex environment marked by rapidly changing attitudes, rules, and technologies, This course provides a foundation for professional practice by introducing essential US ethical, legal, and regulatory principles and requirements. It explores concepts including free, commercial, and compelled speech, as well as defamation, privacy, intellectual property, and duty of care. It also investigates how regulatory agencies impact areas like employee and investor relations, advertising, and lobbying and reflects on the role of professional codes, ethical business standards, and PR ethics theory.

This foundational seminar covers required skills for writing strategic PR messages to achieve specific objectives with target audiences. Students learn Associated Press style and essential PR and prose rules for crafting clear, concise, direct and syntactically correct documents that use storytelling to support client and employer goals. These documents include press materials such as news releases, “pitch” letters/emails, media alerts, letters to the editor, and opinion pieces. Students study and write several of these assignments. Students also learn about the writing of emails, presentations, reports, social media posts and blogs. By the end of the semester, students will have applied the classic PR writing process to the goal of becoming a skilled PR writer. Successful completion of the course is required to enter Writing Seminar II.

This second and final course in the writing seminar sequence will help students apply the skills acquired in Writing Seminar I to more complex strategic and business challenges. The seminar engages the students to improve organizational reputation, promote products and services, manage issues and deal with internal and external communication concerns. Topics include advanced storytelling, writing web content; writing to promote; advanced speechwriting; and video scripting as well as writing for non-profits, the effective use of visuals, and best practices for cross-cultural communication/writing for today’s diverse, global PR environment. By the end of the semester, students will have applied advanced PR writing theory and practice through a variety of assignments to strengthen organizational awareness, visibility, action and success.

This course examines how public relations professionals work with influencers to communicate their organizations’ messages and cultivate positive media coverage in traditional, online and social media outlets. Students learn how to design messages and communication strategies to appeal to distinct audiences, how news organizations work, and who makes decisions within them. Students also gain proficiency in specific media relations tasks such as “pitching stories,” designing programs, visual story telling, working with social media influencers and key bloggers, managing company social media and handling crises. The course explores how public relations professionals employ online, social and consumer-generated media in a strategic plan, how rapid changes in the business of media affect the public, commerce and the communication industry, what ethical issues are present in media relations and journalism, and how professional communicators balance commercial and public interests.

This course provides students with a holistic view of public relations and corporate communication management, as well as strategic planning for organizational change and growth. It covers various styles and functions of management theory and introduces key principles of marketing, branding, risk management, ethics, and finance. It also introduces some of the successful public relations practices maximizing expenditure of resources. Throughout the course, students develop the ability to work cross-culturally and between crucial agency or organizational departments. Students also learn best practices of email communication, presentations, and employee relations. This course also addresses such critical issues as organizational structure, budgets, mission and vision, as well as stresses the skills necessary for communicators to have a seat at the leadership table.

This course focuses on interdisciplinary communication grounded in strategic thinking, planning and execution. Students learn to think and act strategically for PR and marketing communication purposes, beginning with an understanding of what strategy means in theory and in practice. Topics covered include strategic communication theory, stakeholder engagement, and the application of research data, big and small, in creating and managing strategic plans that address crucial C-suite communication concerns. Throughout the course, students attain a deeper understanding of how strategy or a lack thereof affects business success.

Understanding and using social media has become crucial for the practice of public relations and marketing communication. This course introduces the special nature of social media in this transformative context, emphasizing strategic public relations thinking and delivery. Students assess and engage with leading U.S. and global social media platforms and learn best practices of social media writing and apply it to blogging, content curation, podcasting, consumer relations, and the overall concept of storytelling to empower programs and messages. This course also covers social media listening, theory and practice, and issues affecting social media’s societal impact. Throughout the course, students engage in group and individual assignments that address the fundamentals of strategic social media planning and execution.

The practicum consists of in-depth work on a case study in public relations and/or corporate communication within a corporation, nonprofit organization, educational institution, governmental or non-governmental organization, or public relations agency. This case study – previously solved by the entity - provides practice in solving real-world issues, while having the opportunity to discuss the case with an actual employee (“client”) who worked the scenario, as well as present possible solutions at the end of the course. Post presentation, students will learn from the client how the case was actually solved, and provide feedback on the students’ work. Students will select or be placed with a case study from a list of faculty-approved entities. Students will be required to produce evidence of their contributions under the stewardship of a faculty member. They may also do additional research or provide supportive case analysis based on primary research that is deemed beneficial to the organization's mission and objectives.

This course provides students with the research skills needed to successfully work in public relations. Throughout the course, students learn the importance of understanding target audiences and how to conduct research on these audiences to strengthen public relations planning and execution. The first half of the course focuses on the formal research processes, methodologies, design, and collection. The second half of the course focuses on research tactics, inclusive of writing surveys, conducting interviews, hosting focus groups, and preparing to conceptualize a research topic. Students also learn methods for correct citations, quoting works without plagiarizing, copyright infringement, legal and ethical issues in research, and receive training in working with human subjects. In this course, students also prepare research proposals as a springboard for their Capstone papers.

This course will focus on issues management as a way to proactively participate in the meaningful creation of public policy that affects the organization. A three - part process forms the framework for the course: identifying and understanding public opinion; targeting specific publics; and understanding the sociological and communications principles that govern public opinion (for example, 'The Laws of Public Opinion' developed by social psychologist Hadley Cantril). Students learn how to stay ahead of business and organizational issues so that senior management will see communications as having high value. Research and writing assignments include preparing testimony to be given before government fact - finding commissions. The course focuses on the United States but includes Europe as well.

Employee communicators used to be under - appreciated and underpaid. No more. Organizations are realizing that employees can be their most effective advocates, and that their willingness to act in that capacity will be in direct proportion to their conviction and to the quality of the information they have about the organization. Cases will be examined that show how organizations have enlisted their employees to accomplish things no outside advocate could. Other cases show how organizations - for - profits and not - for - profits - have failed dismally to consider the people who made them successful - with dire consequences. Guest lecturers will include communicators from organizations that have been most successful with employee communications. Students learn how and when to employ the various communications media such as the Internet and Intranet. While most of the emphasis is on the employee constituency, other audiences and potential constituencies, including shareholders and customers, are studied as well.

Investor Relations (IR) professionals play a crucial role in enabling public companies to communicate their financial performance and strategic direction to the investment marketplace in a credible and consistent manner, with the goal of achieving a fair value for the company's securities. To accomplish this goal, investor relations practitioners must possess and employ in - depth knowledge of finance and the capital markets, effective communications and marketing techniques, and securities regulation. The course will cover such topics as: the factors influencing investment decisions; interpreting and communicating financial data; understanding relevant United States securities regulations; investor relations and corporate governance best practices; effective use of investor communications tools (news releases, investor relations websites, investor presentations, etc.); and working with such audiences as institutional and retail investors, sell - side analysts and financial media. The course is designed to equip the student to participate in strategic decision - making with senior management and the Board of Directors on matters relating to shareholder value. The course will incorporate case studies based on actual public companies and will feature guest speakers such as corporate executives, investment professionals and financial reporters.

An organization must gain a license to operate, and that license can be official or symbolic. Companies that have manufacturing facilities - especially those that engender any kind of health or environmental considerations - know that government approvals are not sufficient for a company to begin and continue operations. There are always relationships that must be fostered in order for public relations practitioners to be able to adequately address the interests and issues of diverse community stakeholders while, at the same time, delivering against business or organizational objectives. Students will learn how to work with activist and advocacy groups to build communications plans that keep key constituencies informed, involved and supportive. In this age of instantaneous communications, one small community's issue can quickly become a firestorm of communications challenges, and there are ways to prevent that from happening. The course includes negotiation and conflict resolution, and corporate philanthropy.

Influencing the decisions of legislative and executive bodies at the national, state, and local levels is an increasingly critical task that involves specialized information gathering, analysis, relationship building and communications skills. This course will provide insight into how these tools of government relations professionals are developed and employed to fairly address the concerns of the organization that government affairs and public policy advocates represent. Successful public policy advocacy begins with a clear understanding of how decisions are made and, therefore, whom to influence and how to influence them. The course reviews the research skills that inform advocacy and lobbying. Establishing goals, developing advocacy plans, and implementing actions will be discussed in the context of building long standing, trusting relationships. Within the United States, the course will survey the laws and techniques for advocacy within for - profit and not - for - profit organizations including direct lobbying, grassroots lobbying, political action, and policy advertising. Course work will highlight the different contexts for United States policy advocacy and contrast United States activities with those undertaken in different political systems outside the United States.

This is a course on how to maintain the trust and confidence of critical stakeholders when things go wrong. Effective crisis response is a competitive advantage and a critical attribute of leadership. Effective crisis response protects a company’s reputation as well as its financial condition, operations, relations with key stakeholders, and strategic focus. This elective course focuses on the business decisions, management processes, and leadership skills necessary to anticipate, plan for, manage through, communicate about, and recover from crises affecting corporations and other complex organizations. In the first session students will be assigned research into a crisis recently in the news. The students may choose the corporation or organization that will be the subject of their research, as well as the particular crisis experienced by that organization. Students will be asked to report back on a number of issues relating to the crisis, including: • The nature of the crisis. • When it was discovered. • The timeliness of the organization’s response to the crisis. • The nature of the response. • The unintended consequences of the response. • The effectiveness of the response. • How individual constituencies were affected by the crisis and response. • How the crisis was resolved. • The student’s assessment of what worked; what didn’t; and how the organization might have been more effective in its response.

Organizations interact with various stakeholder groups, both internal and external, and the interactions challenge organizations to consider who they are and how they represent themselves. In other words, organizations are, or at least should be, concerned with issues of intrinsic identity (what they stand for) and reputation (how they are perceived). This course examines how to manage identity and reputation as assets so that, over the long term, they will contribute to the growth and viability of the organization, as significantly as any asset might. The course also examines how identity influences the ways in which organizations represent themselves to the various constituencies, and how identity is influenced by interactions with the groups. While a good reputation cannot be built, or at least sustained, unless the organization does good things, reputation is a function of communication as well as performance and behavior—so all three have to be managed consistently and well. In combining theoretical foundations with a case-study approach, students will be encouraged to examine issues of identity, representation and reputation critically and analytically. The case study approach will include organizations with the best and worst reputations. Among the organizational reputation cases examined in class will be: the Apple iPhone 4 problem; BP oil spill in the gulf, Pepsi syringe hoax; Firestone-Explorer tire crisis; Prudential insurance fraud; General Motors Dateline NBC Truck Explosion controversy; and the Toyota recall. We will examine organizations with exceptionally strong intrinsic identities including Starbucks and the Mayo Clinic. Cases will include several European and Asian firms.

All public relations professionals are counselors requiring business and management expertise, whether they head up their own consultancies, are employed by public relations firms, or by a corporation, government or non-profit organization. This course will focus on the building and/or enhancing of a consultancy business by acquiring competencies and attitudes leading to long-term, mutually productive relationships with clients desiring high caliber communications and media-related services. Financial and contractual arrangements (from fee-for-service to retainer) will be explored, with emphasis on the development of negotiating skills. Students will be introduced to budgeting and management principles that are the foundation of a successful consulting enterprise. Successful counselors will conduct case history sessions whereby students can benefit from others' experiences in the complexities of attracting and retaining clients. The importance of educating clients in the nuances and intricacies of public relations will be discussed so that realistic objectives and expectations can be established. Quality and ethics issues will be explored, as will the responsibilities involved in the dissemination of information to the media and other publics. Segments of this course will be devoted to client services: the building of writing skills via the development of press materials, brochures and/or websites, and the know-how to create media, marketing and communications strategies. By semester's end, students will produce (individually or in teams) a complete, public relations agency-caliber presentation to gain a particular public relations project from a client. The presentation will include an in-depth media and/or communications strategy that will be presented to and be critiqued by the class and instructor.

This course will cover several universal principles that underpin successful marketing and public relations for organizations that focus on the unique strategies that apply to non - profits. These organizations must sell themselves to target audiences, just as commercial organizations do, in order to, for instance, attract employees and volunteers, get favorable publicity and compete for scarce donor dollars. Non - profit organizations have to work within budget, manage internal and external relationships, lead, and, ultimately, deliver an important service. From the large, international non - profits to the small, local ones, success today requires the integration of marketing and public relations strategies. Guest lecturers and case studies, from the arts, education and corporate philanthropy, will help students understand the particular marketing and public relations strategies, such as niche marketing, employed by each. Recent scandals will be analyzed for their genesis, their lasting effects and lessons to be learned about measuring, monitoring and managing organizational reputation as an asset. Other subjects include governance, transparency and regulations. A semester - long project will have students working in teams to produce a full - fledged communications campaign for an actual non - profit, including a situation analysis, objectives, strategies, tactics and an evaluation mechanism.

Because of New York University's location and relationships, students taking this course will be taught by and work with leaders from the healthcare industry, as well as TV networks, motion picture studios, recording labels and sports marketing. Those and other specialties will be covered from two perspectives; first, the knowledge of the particular industry that a public relations person must have; and second, the general communications skills that can be honed to meet the needs of a particular industry. From an industry that can literally save lives, students will gain an understanding of a pharmaceutical product's life cycle and how to promote an over-the-counter or prescription product. From an industry that is as dynamic and exciting as any, students will learn how to promote culture and entertainment. Whether the particular product promotes health, happiness or intellectual stimulation, the public relations practitioner must be well grounded in the principles of ethics that will be studied in this course. In addition, the course will cover special events management and electronic public relations, fields that some practitioners specialize in.

This course is designed to introduce students to the concept of integrated marketing. By taking a holistic view of various traditional and non - traditional marketing disciplines, marketers can most effectively reach targeted audiences with customized messages at the right time. Specifically, this course will help students develop a practitioner's ability to design and implement Integrated Marketing campaigns as the coordinated use of public relations, and marketing strategies and tactics to send well - defined, interactive messages to individual customers. At the end of the semester, students will have learned what integrated marketing is, the role of direct and interactive marketing within an integrated - marketing plan, how to determine when integrated marketing is an appropriate way to achieve marketing objectives, how to plan, develop, execute, and evaluate an integrated - marketing plan, and examples of contemporary businesses that have successfully used integrated marketing.

In today's multi-national workforce and multi-cultural society, the importance of international training for communications professionals is greater than ever before. Internet and E-Commerce, the diversity of news media and mass communications, new and emerging trends in international business communications, advances in technologies in 'advertising' and public relations to name just a few areas, have created an environment that demands an understanding of the latest knowledge in global communications and the impact that it has on successful business practice. Students will achieve the following objectives: gain an understanding and appreciation for the multi - faceted global workplace including individual attitudes and approaches to conducting public relations programs; acquire skills necessary for designing and implementing effective communications programs for the global market; understand new and emerging technologies, their impact on the international communications field and how to manage their cost and effectiveness; gain an appreciation and understanding for the global media, how it differs from country - to - country and how to best manage its complexity to achieve maximum effectiveness of communications efforts; and appreciate the differences among marketing, advertising and public relations. The course will also help students understand the 'do's and taboos' of cultural differences and nuances around the globe and the proper business behavior to prevent embarrassment, unhappiness and failure.

This course introduces students to topics of relevance to the global PR and communications industry and establishes some frameworks through which to analyze and evaluate the ecosystem of these industries. The course reviews topics that inform the competitive business strategies adopted by various players in the environment, and/or the creative process of developing PR and communications campaigns and the criteria used to assess whether these campaigns had impact. Special topics are analyzed in the context of how they are shaped by PR and communications practice, and how they are impacted by, or alternatively, help drive globalization and digital transformation.

Internships provide students with the opportunity to acquire professional experience and add a real-world perspective to their studies. The course consists of on-site work at a corporation, nonprofit or governmental organization, educational institution, or small and medium sized company that provides an educational experience for the student, under faculty supervision. Students apply the knowledge acquired through their coursework to industry practice and explore career options. This course has GPA and credit completion requirements.

Completing this capstone paper course marks the culmination of the program. Each student is required to enroll in this course following the completion of the core and concentration courses. In this course, each student studies a public relations and/or corporate communication challenge facing an organization, individual, product, service or public policy, selected with faculty approval and conducted under the stewardship of a faculty member as adviser. The study may be related to an existing communication problem, a new business venture or an extensive case analysis based on secondary research, primary research, interviews and profiles of the key individuals or institutions related to the student’s area of concentration. The study should offer a unique contribution to the field based on the student’s findings, addressing the challenge or opportunity.