Current Trends in Advertising, Public Relations, Integrated Marketing Communication and Strategic Communication Education

• Main Authors: Hanna Park, Eyun-Jung Ki
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Insitute for Public Relations 2017-08-01
• Series: Public Relations Journal
• Online Access: https://prjournal.instituteforpr.org/wp-content/uploads/REVISED05COMPARING-EDUCATION-FINAL.pdf
• ISSN: 1942-4604; 1942-4604

The integration of advertising and public relations is a topic of interest to their practitioners and educators. For years, both have recommended ways to integrate these functions. In accordance with this trend, some advertising and public relations schools decided to merge and to change the names of their programs to Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) or Strategic Communication. This study was designed to investigate the trend of integration between advertising and public relations programs in U.S. higher education. To achieve this purpose, we analyzed the contents of 113 advertising, public relations, IMC, and strategic communication programs that described in these schools’ official websites. Although a few schools have begun to use the terms IMC, or strategic communication for the names of their schools or programs, the terms advertising and/or public relations remain in the mainstream. Nine institutions use strategic communication, and most of them use this term as an umbrella term, which includes both advertising and public relations majors. Regarding curriculum, a majority of the programs offering advertising, public relations, or strategic communication tend to offer separate introductory, writing, design, and campaign courses for both advertising and public relations majors, while a small portion of schools provide combined courses for both majors. Implications for curricular integration and design in advertising and public relations are discussed.