Practitioner roles: Their meaning for educators

Abstract

Research on public relations practitioners strongly suggests a division of labor between communication technicians and those who stress managerial public relations roles. To what extent is such a division acknowledged and addressed by instructors of public relations courses? A survey of Public Relations Division members of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication showed that public relations educators model their teaching not on one type of communication technician role, but two, distinguishing the teaching of technical production techniques from boader media relations work. But the dominant role-orientation teaching model that surfaced in the educators' survey was that of a decision-maker style of practitioner which combined elements of managerial practitioner roles with those of the communication technician.