Special Aspects of Effective PR Professionals’ Training in the Post-Truth Era

Abstract

In recent years, the post-truth era has become the new reality of the modern digital world, requiring changes in approaches to training public relations (PR) specialists. In such conditions, the classical image-based approach to education is not always effective when choosing professional competencies. The latter increases the need to involve relevant specialists to resolve complex controversies. This is the task today that should be entrusted to PR professionals. The objective of this article is to study the main aspects of effective organization of PR training. For this aim, the self-selection sampling technique is used. The sample population comprises people who responded positively to the proposal to engage in an online survey posted on a specially designed for this purpose website. The authors have conducted a sociological survey of experts in the field of PR, advertising, journalism, marketing and education (n = 100) in order to determine the main methodological aspects, approaches and principles of PR professionals' training. It has been identified that in the training of PR professionals the most effective methods of gaining practical knowledge are the case study method, the business game method and the project task method. All three methods are group methods, with the help of which a PR professional can develop almost all the necessary competencies. Such methods should be used in conjunction with other practical approaches, seminars, lectures, and mixed methods that combine qualitative and quantitative approaches and pragmatically draw on distinct research paradigms.