PRL 206 - Public Relations Principles and Concepts (Spring 2022)

A subtle but distinct advantage of search queries in Summon and in these article databases - is the ability to search a proper name of a company or other organization, government agency, person or a named theory within public relations -and then sort results chronologically, or apply other search result filters (e.g., for a desired content/source type or desired range of publication dates). 

These PR career specializations matches those in the PRL research paper assignment  - and may also help with the final research paper as well.

Another technique that may help in locating article discussion about Public Relations within a specific delimited industry environment is to select a major database for that field and then enter search phrases such as "public relations."  Or experiment with entry of other term(s) pertinent to the PR field, which may include specific job titles one sees in the public relations field.

Tip - Search Terminology:  within certain discourse communities for some of these sub-disciplines, when speaking about "public relations" related activities, they may not always literally use that phrase itself. In both government and also nonprofit contexts, other terminology may be equally or more common (e.g., in the nonprofit world one thinks of terms like "community," "community outreach," "community relations," etc. OR in entertainment, a  job title such as "publicist."). So as you encounter those, or analogous alternative wordings, be sure to employ them within some of your search queries.

PR Counseling ("Agencies")

Education

Financial PR & Investor Relations

Although activities in this career sub-field are different, consider using the article database(s) recommended for PR Agencies

Sports/Sport Management

Travel and Tourism

The database called ScienceDirect contains current and back issues of the scholarly journal, Annals of Tourism Research. This is SU Libraries Classic Catalog listing for Annals of Tourism Research (click on the 'get it' link to navigate into recent and older articles).  Another journal those working in this specialization may wish to explore is entitled Place Branding and Public Diplomacy

Nonprofit Sector (Primarily Non-Arts Related)

Political & Government PR

Government Relations, Public Affairs, and Lobbying

Health and Healthcare Industries

Arts and Entertainment

Corporate (Community Relations & Social Responsibilities Programs)

Beauty & Fashion 

The U.S. Department of Labor supports freely available online tools for individuals exploring career opportunities.  These lead to current information and data about skills, industry trends and salaries – [not as descriptive as trade publication articles or books, but great overviews].  Also helpful in providing job classification titles that might represent good search terms when exploring PR using  licensed databases or search engines:

• O*NET Online
• Occupational Outlook Handbook 

Crowdsourced careers and salary information also appears on the social media platform Glassdoor https://www.glassdoor.com/ .  Be aware data here is employee contributed. Often providing data unavailable elsewhere, but self-selection among those deciding to participate may problematize broader conclusions.  Especially when assessing salary and related trends reported by individuals, use multiple sources and databases to explore if Glassdoor data seems reliable or off-base for specific job classifications you investigate. Be a savvy evaluator of these trends. Past salary data may not reflect future directions for those numbers.

News databases also may help many PRL 206 students when seeking background information on an organization for the final project in the course.  Contact the Newhouse Librarian if seeking a specific news databases recommendation

For a gateway to additional newspaper databases SU Libraries offers - visit the online research guide site called Newspaper Databases

Two leading examples of superb news source aggregator databases (including business news) that are great alternatives to Nexis Uni include:

Access World News Access Tip:  Access World News (Newsbank) has been expanding its range of full page imaged newspaper archives of current and recent content, with titles like The Guardian, The Independent, and more local to the SU Hill, Syracuse Post-Standard.  A handy way to see all such page imaged newspaper collections from the Access World News homepage is to click on the A-Z Source List, then click on the column heading for "Format" so that the format type called "image" sorts the page imaged newspaper titles toward the top of that A to Z list.