Libyan PR Participants’ Perceptions of and Motivations for Studying PR in Libya

Abstract

Public relations in Libya is very much a new phenomenon, even compared with other Arab countries, although there are PR practices growing in tandem with some large local businesses and organisations. Based on the assumption that PR continues to play a vital role in communities and businesses, it is important to reconsider and evaluate its practices regularly, especially in terms of teaching and skills (including its curriculum). This study explores the quality of the educational PR curriculum, training and taught courses in Libyan universities by focusing on the perceptions of Libyan PR’s academic professionals and senior PR students, covering roughly more than a quarter-century of teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It examines how university PR students are taught, what strategies and modules are applied and how professionals and students evaluate the PR curriculum and their practical advantages. Based on a survey (N=367) and interview (N=15) approach, the overall findings revealed that the PR curriculum needed to be updated and that PR should be recognised as a practical, not a theoretical, subject and should have its own union helping to provide more training programmes in an updated setting.