Scope and Method of Study:

The purpose of this research is to discover what students should learn about worldwide public relations and on which level they should learn it.
Those main questions were asked of a group of (n = 92; 45.5%; N = 202) American practitioners in the field of worldwide public relations.

Four questions guided this study: (1) Is there a genuine need for such a course? (2) What should be the content of a WPR course? (3) At what level should WPR be taught? (4) What type or level of education do current practitioners have?

An exploratory, descriptive approach was used for this study because not much information is available that tells how practitioners feel about WPR education.

Therefore, this thesis describes what practitioners of worldwide public relations think ought to be included in courses about worldwide public relations. Based on their answers, an overall direction for worldwide public relations education at the university level is suggested.

Findings and Conclusions:

All of the respondents agreed that courses in worldwide public relations are important and that they should be taught at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Knowledge of foreign media was indicated as the most crucial thing for practitioners to know; it was indicated by 97.8% of the respondents.

The data indicates that a large knowledge of other cultures’ media, politics, history, economics and religion was highly recommended by current practitioners.

The following topics are recommended to be included in worldwide public relations courses: knowledge of media in other cultures, knowledge of global politics, current affairs, economics, history, religion, and knowledge of developments of public relations practices in other cultures.

For each of the topics, future practitioners have to be aware how it will influence their public relations practice. Future practitioners should also be skilled in one or more languages, in which speaking skills are more important than reading and writing another language. All of this knowledge, however, needs to be applied within the public relations perspective of relationship building with the various publics of an organization.