On-going Public Relations (PR) event ‘Bold Enough to Stream’ (BETS) The Positioning of Public Relations is taking its balance to its craft — a combined effort between marketing’s digitally-minded tactics and PR’s relationship-centric strategies. In conjunction with UTAR 20th Anniversary, 126 students from UAMP2033 Event Management, Bachelor of Communication (Honours) Public Relations (PR) from the Department of Public Relations, Faculty of Arts and Social Science has recently kick-started the programme branding event, marking the new pivotal moment as the initiative debuts a talk show on social media.
The organising committees have developed innovative and meaningful ways to engage with society, including its civic role in collaboration with the university’s academic staff and PR Alumni to communicate the art and science behind the practice of Public Relations and leading trends to implement planned programmes of action which will serve both the university’s and the public interests.
“Over the past few weeks, BETS has produced a series of short TV Show with a duration of approximately 20 minutes per episode titled ‘Bold to Chat’. This series will feature six academic staffs from UTAR’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences as guest speakers and will discuss PR-related topics from the lens and perspectives of UTAR lecturers to the potential stakeholders through “Edutainment” (education and entertainment) format,” said Liew Yong Qi, Director, BETS.
She added, “The edutainment programme is a 21st century way of teaching in this digital era where younger audiences no longer prefer the conventional way of absorbing new information. The segment produced covers a wide-spreading talk show discussing topics Introduction to PR, Development for PR, Fashion of PR, Service Learning (CSR), Media Law and Ethics, as well as Social Media Practice and Crisis Management. The topics discussed intend to offer new and fascinating alternative subtopics linked with the PR field in a fun and light-hearted manner.”
Liew stated that another TV segment PR Alumni Sharing Session, is introduced as a new agenda for student engagement to share career-building experiences with the juniors. “Inviting alumni back to talk to current students is an excellent opportunity for the potential stakeholders, as well as other industries to visualise what we can become in the future, and also to visualise that studying a Bachelor of Public Relations major in UTAR provides real opportunities for the students,”
“While everyone’s story, both from a personal and professional perspective, is uniquely their own, I find that people can often draw insights from the experiences of others that may apply to one’s path. Although, every aspect of PR is a journey in telling a story and finding a basis for connection and relationship with other people, it is always fun to imagine yourself working in different roles or at different organisations. That is why BETS incorporates the idea of having the seniors as a comeback to encourage students to keep going, get involved in the community and build their skill set. It will make them a desirable candidate, and will hopefully land them their dream job.” She added.
The programme acknowledges the level of talk-show segments and public engagement activities in providing social media actions to develop this working trend in the future. Public Engagement is also another main segment on putting creative narratives to engage the public in delivering game-like features as a form of inspiration and support in a positive way to highlight the importance of uplifting PR enthusiasm among the potential stakeholders.
Lecturer-cum-programme advisor Mohd Yusof Bin Zulkefli stated that BETS introduces public contests as the programme's main components to address the needs of combining education and entertainment. “With an ever-increasing audience of followers on the growing number of social media platforms, BETS is taking the approach with social media strategies by integrating public participation to communicate and generate the key messages as well as the interaction to influence audiences through the use of digital platforms,”
He continued, “It is important to accommodate the creativity of these future PR practitioners in identifying a problem to planning a PR event that is related to today’s industry. The activities are categorised into three groups: the challenge (Prompt Test Challenge: Duet with PR!), contest (Branding Photo & Slogan Contest: Sponsor x BETS), and award (POV Challenge: Your Turn to Be in The Spotlight) and last category of engagement activities that add a hint of sugar in the PR Fashion field (Costume Transition Challenge: Dressed to Impress and Best Squad Nomination Award: SALUTE! The Incredibles). Be it on Facebook and Instagram mobile app or web, or even TikTok, we aim to trigger insights of social media activities where hence innovation even to design a better learning model to ignite the potential stakeholders’ interests in the particular educational programme.”
The programme starts with the Public Engagement event from 7 February 2022 until 16 April 2022. Specifically, Bold To Chat and PR Alumni Sharing Session began on 6 March 2022 and will wrap up on 16 April 2022.
For more information, please contact [email protected].
About UTAR
Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) was officially launched on 13 August 2002 as a not for-profit private university providing affordable quality education. It was established under the UTAR Education Foundation and registered under the Malaysian Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996. Guided by its vision to be a global university of educational excellence, UTAR is highly reputed as one of the fastest-growing private higher education institutions in the country, with phenomenal growth in all aspects of its development since its inception.
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BETS’ ‘Bold to Chat’ talk-show features the DPR’s academic staffs invited as guest speakers wide-spreading talk show topics.
BETS’ PR Alumni Sharing Session starred its first alumna in the episode on 6 March 2022.
BETS’ on-going Public Engagement Activity Costume Transition Challenge: Dressed to Impress.
BETS’ overall programmes featured on ‘Bold To Chat’, PR Alumni Sharing Session and Public Engagement Activities.
BETS’ organising committees with ‘Bold To Chat’ talk-show’s guest speaker on its appreciation gift sending session.
This content is provided by BETS
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