PUBLIC-RELATIONS EXECUTIVES PERCEPTIONS OF DISCIPLINARY EMPHASES IMPORTANT TO PUBLIC-RELATIONS PRACTICE FOR THE 1990S

The purpose of this study was to investigate academic course areas that agency/firm and organizational public relations employers foresee as important to the practice of public relations in the 1990s. Based upon the responses of 188 public relations executives providing data for this research, the authors offer recommendations for the development of public relations education programs meeting the needs of the marketplace in the coming decade. The findings of this study have been discussed on public relations panels at the Annual Conventions of the Central States Speech Association, the Speech Communication Association and the International Communication Association. The authors gratefully acknowledge the statistical analysis and interpretation assistance received from R. Rocco Cottone of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, the late Willard North of Central Missouri State University and from Dennis Davis of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. This study was funded by a faculty development grant from Central Missouri State University. Dr. Wakefield is an associate professor of public relations and advertising and director of the public relations major in the Department of Journalism at Butler University. Dr. Cottone is an assistant professor and director of the public relations sequence in the Department of Speech Communication at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.