Date: 1st October 2019
Venue: Institute of Public Relations Malaysia, Putrajaya
This workshop was presented by the Institute of Public Relations Malaysia (IPRM). The objectives of the institute are to promote the interests of public relations practitioners and enhance the practice of public relations in the country. The workshop was lead by Dr. Kiranjit Kaur, a senior member of the IPRM council. The topic that was discussed in this workshop was “Public Relations Profession: Moving Forward”. She begin by explaining the history about Public Relations and then stating the challenges that the current public relations industry faces. There are various types of standards of practice in this field which all focuses on the code of ethics and the tight culture of the industry.
Next, she explained the concerns and challenges of Public Relations. From what I understand, organisations and political figures do not have a clear understanding of Public Relations and are not aware of the importance of Public Relations to them. Previously, anyone can be in a Public Relations professional but now organisations are finding for people with a communication background. For this reason, we are slowly moving forward to the importance of the professionalism of Public Relations to organisations out there.
After the talk, we were brought to visit the newsroom by the Director to Corporate Media and Communication. He explained on how the newsroom operates on a daily basis and gave us a glimpse on the media releases created for an event or news. I find this part of the field trip to be most interesting as it was towards a more real-life situation.
The goal of the Institute of Public Relations Malaysia (IPRM) is to build a unified voice and stand for all PR related matters, because more members equals to more voice. Nowadays, many students are taking mass communication courses which means the amounts of mass communication graduates will increase from time to time. It is a very competitive world. Therefore, IPRM increases our credibility as a Public Relations student for the better of our future career. As a result, Professor Kiren strongly encourages us as graduates to join IPRM as members after we have officially graduated from our course in Taylor’s University.
I agree with Professor Kiren when she said that we should do our internship at a company that pays less but allows us to learn more in terms of the variety of experiences instead of a higher paying job where you would not learn as much. When we learn more, it would increase our level of thinking skills that would definitely benefit to grow in our future career. Moreover, I believe that involving in extra-curriculums, offering help to community service organisations by joining non-profit organisations such as the Leo Club and working part-time jobs would broaden our skills and knowledge for self-betterment.
Overall, I find this workshop to be interesting as I gained to know more about the struggles that Public Relations industry goes through. I believe that this industry has much more to offer and contribute to the country starting with us as graduates to join as a member of IPRM to be accredited as a PR professional in the future.
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