The Media Studies Office has launched STREAMLINE, a PR agency within the Public Relations Management (PRM) Department, right here at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). It is a new concept for the department but right on the mark with the trend to integrate education with industry practices.
Nick Lucido, a third year public relations student at Michigan State University and blogger, wrote his predictions for Public Relations in 2009 in his personal blog “PR Start”. He believes, that amongst the PR buzzwords for this year, “…combining theory with practical experience” is, in his words, “the name of the game for successful PR education.”
The PRM three-year national diploma has long been the preferred PR qualification due to the practical third year internship in which students are sent into industry for a eight to twelve months. It is the reason why I chose to study PR at CPUT and this course was recommended, over other PR courses. I am proud to have completed my B Tech Degree and had the opportunity to gain well-rounded experience as a PR intern at the Heart and Stroke Foundation SA.
When I first read Uno de Waal’s blog post WebPR isn’t PR and PR isn’t WebPR in 2007, I believe he hit the mark when he wrote: “… PR companies and places like CPUT that offer courses in PR …have no idea what’s cooking online…It takes ages for a field of study to actually reach a proper maturity that it can be presented. And with things online it moves so fast that by the time you start a subject course, the material would be old by the time you finish it. So it is difficult for PR companies to stay up to date with what’s happening online.”
This is where STREAMLINE fits in. STREAMLINE is the bridge between PR, the academic study, and the practical, trend-watching, adaptation to and creation of new communication tools, which is PR in practice and engaged in online media. It is our philosophy to follow industry trends particularly that of the social media explosion, feeding what we learn on the job back to the staff and students of the PR department.
STREAMLINE manages the social media for the department of Public Relations Management, is available to assist the Faculty of Informatics and Design and takes on socially responsible projects in alignment with CPUT’s Social Responsibility Index (SRI) and community development.
To find out more about STREAMLINE, visit http://streamlinepr.wordpress.com/about/
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