Trends in Public Relations Training.

This article focuses on several courses on public relations offered by various universities in the U.S. In the present paper, it is proposed to summarize course offerings in this field in the thirty-four universities with 5,000 and more students, in the thirty four colleges and universities which are members of the American Association of Schools and Departments of Journalism, and in seven other schools now offering "public relations" courses. Then, an effort is made to bring together what looks like the "best thinking" of teachers and practitioners on the construction of general and special courses in public relations and on the development of curricular recommendations for those looking forward to becoming public relations specialists. Even though the courses in "public relations" still frequently stress publicity and "opinion management" techniques to the exclusion of other aspects of a well-rounded perspective, the growing body of literature on public opinion, mass communication, and social action brings more and more emphasis to bear upon the subject as an applied social science course.