The Internet Imperative

Abstract

A large part of the public relations industry is now actively involved in some form of, or the management of, what is described as social media (Curtis et al 2009).In addition, a significant proportion of academic papers and not a small part of student and practitioner education is devoted to internet mediated communications studies. “On the skills side,” noted long time academician Kevin Maloney, “the rise of new media is the revolutionary change.” (Maloney 2010).This paper takes this as a theme to explore both the practice and more fundamental drivers that can be explored by the public relations industry and academia.