Career in Public Relations !  (By: Zeeshan ul Rub Jaffri)

With the media revolution in Pakistan, a large number of students are now considering taking admissions in media related subjects. Almost all major government Universities have Departments of Mass Communication or Journalism that have been the best choice for media students.

Students can take admission in BA (Honours) (minimum Intermediate with minimum 45 per cent marks) as well as directly in Masters (minimum graduation with minimum 45 per cent marks) in Departments of Maas Communication. 

order In Maas Communication, in to provide a solid base to a subject like Journalism, students are initially taught the basic course of English, Urdu, Sociology, Pakistan Studies, International Relations, Sub-editing, Electronic Media, Maas Communication theories & Print Media etc.

In the final year of Maas Communication students have to choose the subjects of their specialization, which may vary from student to student. Students have a variety of choice for subjects to major in during the final year Advertising, Public Relation, Advance Reporting, Electronic Media, Organizational Communication & Management are a few among them.

Public Relations is a fast growing profession in Pakistan & students graduating in Maas Communication have enormous opportunities to explore in this rapidly expanding field. We would take an overview of what a Public Relation firm is all about when it comes to practical application of the bookish theories.

Public Relations is said to have branched out of the main advertising stream during the past 15 years in Pakistan. Though the field itself is said to have been in the country for a long time, professional public relation firms started mushrooming in the country much later. Today, besides in-house PR departments of various organizations, there are companies, consultants or firms that specializes in the field of image Building, Media Management, damage control and corporate image enhancement.

PR people, often working in close coordination with marketing and advertising people, find themselves involved in the all sorts of special events, promotional activities and other means of publicizing a client's progress & achievements.

According to a PR guru "The ad agency's job is to convince the media consumers for something while the PR firm's is to convince the media for something."

A PR firm consist of several department where one can set himself in, Program Planning, Media Monitoring, Client Service, Media Relations, Research and Reference, Creative Writing and Production Department are a few of them.

Suppose if you are a good newspaper reader and can judge and sense the meaning underlying the news stories, you are a best choice for a PR firm for its Media monitoring department. If you are good in developing and maintaining personal relations with others, you can become a part of the Media Relations Department and so on.

In order to become a part of any PR firm, one needs to have genuine media flair. The individual has to keep his eyes open for every development at the political front in general and at the media front in particular so that he or she not only remains fully abreast of the developments at these tow important fronts but could also foresee the challenges ahead.

Back to Articles