Purpose and practice

Abstract

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