Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Illinois at Chicago/Public Relations and Digital Media (Spring 2024)

SYLLABUS: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XfilYClPnkLg0l_8Ly3PVSIRt-GVrmQug3mqN5Lg4O8/edit

This class will provide a historical, interpretive, and critical overview of the history of public relations as well as its role in contemporary society, with particular emphasis on contemporary digital media campaigns. This is not a “how to do public relations course.” Rather, we will study how public relations messages build identities and persuade publics by identifying and shaping audience understandings, beliefs and values. We will also study how public relations messages offer the corporation as the source of both social stability and progress. Through this understanding, students will learn to analyze, address, engage with, and craft public relations messaging.

This group project will be a significant improvement to a Wikipedia stub (short article) or a new article that accurately and neutrally covers a local nonprofit. Your group will collaborate on finding proper sources, writing a neutral and balanced article that adheres to the guidelines, as well as commenting on other groups’ projects.

Course Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to apply the principles or public relations to specific cases studies, organizations, and professional situations. Students will be able to design, construct, and disseminate public relations campaigns and strategies for all media –print, analog, digital, and social. Students will be able to identify and analyze the use of ethics in public relations and social media. Students will be able to critique the use of social media in public relations.