MA Public Relations
Full-time, Part-time
Location • City Campus
Related subjects • Media, PR and journalism
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View a 360 degree tour of the Cantor lecture theatre.
Read about our media PR and journalism teaching team
Our Digital Design Centre can print medium to large format high quality outputs on a range of different media. The laboratories have software supporting 2D and 3D engineering and creative design applications. Find out more.
One of the most valuable resources available for you to access is our highly experienced technical support team. Find out how they can help support your development.
If you are a recent graduate with little or no public relations (PR) experience and want a career in a exciting and expanding sector, this course equips you with the essential practical skills and knowledge you need to become an effective professional.
You learn
• the latest techniques necessary to succeed in the fast changing world of communications
• the analytical, management and organisational skills needed at the highest levels
• the origins and history of PR
• how governments use PR in peacetime and in war as propaganda
• how PR boosts the profile of big business and rescues and repairs reputations
• how the political and business world now positions PR as an essential weapon in their communications armoury
You make case studies of important PR campaigns and work with clients to develop your professional skills in the real world. You understand how to work with journalists, to meet their needs and to maximise positive publicity and minimise negative coverage for your clients. You also learn practical skills such as • writing news releases • organising press conferences • creating PR campaigns • dealing with the media • responding to bad news • creative use of online and social media
We give you the skills you need to get your message across different media types including print, broadcasting, social media and the internet. It is not about ‘spin’ but about great writing and verbal skills, critical and creative thinking and understanding how the media works.
The course combines academic learning, vocational training and hands on practice. You learn to
• use practical, management and organisational PR skills
• understand and critically evaluate key concepts, theories and debates in PR
• work effectively with the media industry
• understand the ethical dimensions of PR and apply ethical practice in your work
• work flexibly, confidently and to professional standards
• carry out research into the PR and media industries
• think creatively and reflect critically on your own professional development
• develop an individual online networking and social media profile
Organisations are increasingly recognising the value of PR and the power of skilled communications with customers. It is estimated there are now more PR practitioners than journalists in the UK. As more media platforms are launched, the opportunities for honest, ethical and skilled PR professionals continue to grow.
The course is delivered by a team that includes national award winning PR industry specialists, with experience across TV, health, charity, public and private sectors.
Related courses
Full-time – one year
Part-time – typically three years
Starts September
Complete the application form available at www.shu.ac.uk/study/form
2013/14 academic year
Typically £5,355 for the course
Part-time study should be calculated pro rata.
The course fee may be subject to annual inflationary increase. For further information on fees and funding see www.shu.ac.uk/funding
2013/14 academic year
Typically £10,980 for the course
2014/15 academic year
Typically £11,250 for the course
The course fee may be subject to annual inflationary increase. For further information on fees, scholarships and bursaries see www.shu.ac.uk/international/fees
• essay • dissertation • portfolio and critical evaluation of professional standard work
This course is recognised by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).
When you enrol on a course recognised by the CIPR you are eligible for CIPR Student Membership. This gives you access to the members area of the CIPR website, where they have a dedicated student area which offers help and advice on getting into the PR industry.
Cantor Lecture Theatre
The Cantor lecture theatre opened in 2008 in the state-of-the-art Cantor Building.
Adrian Roxan
Senior lecturer
Adrian is a senior lecturer in public relations teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
He is a trained journalist who switched to public relations after spells working in newspapers, magazines and radio. He has worked in the public relations field for 25 years including running a busy London local government press office, working in national health education and three years running the press office at the British Medical Association.
He ran a leading public sector PR consultancy for eight years specialising in issues management with clients as diverse as the Audit Commission, the NHS Cancer Screening Programmes, ACAS, the Healthcare Commission and the Financial Services Authority.
Adrian moved into teaching in 2007 before joining Sheffield Hallam University as a permanent member of staff at the beginning of 2010. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
Dr Geff Green
Senior lecturer
Before joining the communication team at Sheffield Hallam University in 1997, Geff worked as a musician, taught English in Indonesia for two years and later designed, programmed and maintained professional multimedia applications, eventually joining Epic Media Group PLC in Brighton.
Since joining Sheffield Hallam University, he has taught professional and technical communication mainly at masters level and supervised four PhDs ranging from art and design to technical communication. He has been involved with teaching multimedia and communication design to undergraduate students and teaches modules specialising in research methods, online design, online journalism and visual communication. He also currently undertakes knowledge transfer and international business development work for the university.
His research work has focused mainly on South East Asian cultural history and identity with specific focus on film and visual culture, but more recently this interest has expanded to include media anthropology. He retains an interest in visual arts and music and continues work on photographic and digital montage projects in his spare time.
David Clarke
Senior lecturer
David is a senior lecturer and course leader in journalism teaching media law and investigation skills. Before joining Sheffield Hallam he worked as a news reporter for The Sheffield Star and the Yorkshire Post and spent four years working as a press officer in local government.
David's research interests include • investigative journalism • official secrets • censorship • freedom of information. He has a PhD in Folklore which was completed at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition at the University of Sheffield in 1999. David's interest in folklore, contemporary legends and the supernatural goes back to his childhood. He has authored and co-authored 12 books and numerous journal, magazine and newspaper articles on aspects of supernatural belief and tradition. David writes a monthly column for the Fortean Times and sits on the editorial board of The Skeptic.
Since 2008 he has been working with The National Archives (TNA) as their consultant for the ongoing release of the UFO files created by Britain's Ministry of Defence. David's book The UFO Files was published by TNA in September 2009.
Image courtesy of The Sheffield Star.
Carmel O’Toole
Senior lecturer
Carmel O’Toole is a senior lecturer in public relations at Sheffield Hallam University and works with both undergraduate and postgraduate students.
She is a journalist and Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) award-winning practitioner with over 20 years experience in the industry. Carmel is a former local government head of communications and communications manager for Channel 4.
Now also a freelance PR consultant, Carmel works with public and private sector organisations on strategic communications, reputation risk and crisis PR planning and management, media and plain English training, web content development and publications production. Carmel also has extensive experience in events management. Current and recent clients include Serco, Channel 4, Beam, The Mersey Forest plus regional local authorities and housing associations.
An associate consultant with two regional PR agencies, Carmel became an associate lecturer at Sheffield Hallam in 2008. She was appointed to her current post in early 2010, is a member of the National Union of Journalists and the Chartered institute of Public Relations.
Phil Andrews
Senior lecturer
I am a senior lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University and I teach on the sports journalism and international broadcast journalism postgraduate courses.
My background is in sports and television journalism, and I am the author of the standard text on sports journalism, used in universities throughout the world - Sport Journalism: A practical Introduction, published by Sage, London.
I have worked for many years as a sports journalist at The Independent and The Independent on Sunday, national newspapers in the UK.
I am also a TV journalist for ITV, British Independent broadcaster, and have worked as a radio journalist for the BBC.
I won several awards as a sportswriter, including awards from the Sports Writers' association, UK Press Gazette, and was Yorkshire Sports Writer of the Year three times.
I am a former political editor and was head of public relations for Sheffield City Council, one of Britain's largest local authorities, for seven years. I have written two novels, published in London by Hodder and Stoughton.
I teach on the sports journalism and sport and the media modules, and also teach public affairs for journalists.
Sue Featherstone
Senior lecturer
Sue is a journalist with over 20 years experience in regional newspapers and corporate public relations. As a journalist, she has covered a broad range of writing specialisms and this is reflected in her teaching interests, which include broadsheet and magazine feature writing, profiles, personal columns, reviews and opinion pieces.
In 2008 she was journalism lead on a sports initiative which saw two dozen Sheffield Hallam students work as volunteers in the Media Centre at the Beijing Olympics. Amongst other things, they were involved in collecting ‘flash’ quotes from competitors which were fed into a central database for use by sports journalists from all over the world. She has also co-ordinated a similar initiative for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
She is co-author of Feature Writing: A Practical Introduction, published by Sage in Spring 2006, and Newspaper Journalism: A Practical Introduction, which was also published by Sage in Spring 2005. In addition, she is a marker and assessor for the National Council for the Training of Journalists. She is currently working on her first novel.
Noel Williams
Professor of communication
Noel joined Sheffield Hallam in 1979. He’s now professor of communication, with former responsibilities including head of art, design, communication and media and acting head of postgraduate research in the Cultural, Communication and Computing Research Institute (C3RI). His main research interests are in writing, especially creative writing, in digital communications and writing technologies, and in e-learning, both at policy and practical levels.
In 2003 he was seconded to the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) to manage the evaluation of Curriculum OnLine. In 2005 the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators awarded him the Horace Hockley Award for his contribution to the technical publications industry.
He has acted as communications consultant or researcher for the Arthritis and Rheumatism Council, AT&T, British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA), the British Academy, british Standards Institution (BSI), BYG Systems, the Crown prosecution Service (CPS), the DfES, JISC, General Domestic Appliances, IBM (UK), Hepworth Heating, Learning and Teaching Support Network - Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (LTSN-GEES), National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ), Peak Park Planning Authority, Scottish Vocational Educational Council (SCOTVEC), Sheffield City Council, Skillset and local Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs).
Current research interests are teaching writing and creativity, computer game design, interactive texts and e-learning. His most recent book is 'How to Get a 2.1 in Media, Communication and Cultural Studies' (Sage). As a poet, he is resident artist at Bank Street Arts Centre, has published over a hundred poems and won a dozen prizes, and he’s currently working with Sheffield’s Art in the Park on projects to bring poetry to local communities.
Rinella Cere
Senior lecturer
I am a senior lecturer in media and cultural studies. I am the course leader of the MA Communication and Media and I teach on the MA and BA (Hons) Media and Journalism courses.
My teaching and research is in • post-colonial media cultures • globalisation and the media • international museums of cinema • Italian media culture.
I am co-editor of Postcolonial Media Culture in Britain (Palgrave 2011) and author of The Love of Cinema: an international study of museums of cinema and their audience (Routledge, forthcoming publication 2011).
Other recent published work has covered Italian media culture and globalisation (Globalization vs. Localization: anti-immigrant and hate discourses in Italian media in Beyond Monopoly: Contemporary Italian Media and Globalization, Ardizzoni, M. and Ferrari, C. eds., Lexington Books, 2010).
An important strand of my research has been in the representations of gender in an Italian cultural and media context, this has generated two publications: The Body of the Woman Hostage, Spectacular bodies and Berlusconi’s media in War Body on Screen, Randall, K. and Redmond S. eds., (Continuum, 2008) and Forever Girls: Female Ultras and Football Support in Italy in Sport and its Female Fans, K. Toffoletti & P. Mewett (eds), Routledge, forthcoming 2011).
Russell Jackson
Course leader for the undergraduate PR courses
Russell, a sociologist, is a senior lecturer in communication studies and public relations and currently course leader for the undergraduate public relations courses.
He gained an MA in Cultural Studies from the University of Leeds in 1997. His Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded doctoral thesis was a Foucauldian analysis of the construction of responsibility for employee health.
He has presented numerous conference papers and during 2003 was a guest lecturer at the University of Toronto. His main teaching and research interests are in attempting to utilise poststructuralist insights from within a broadly Marxist framework in the areas of health, drugs, governmentality, moral panics, public relations, surveillance and neoliberalism.
Andrew Pollard
Senior lecturer
After graduating with a first class art history degree and achieving a distinction in my masters on cultural policy, I have taught for the past nine years on BA Arts Management and am course leader for MA Cultural Policy and Management at Sheffield Hallam University.
I have been a freelance curator for many years, with successful exhibitions in Yorkshire and Cornwall. I now manage the Clare White Gallery in Barnsley, specialising in Cornish art. I also worked with several South Yorkshire schools and arts practitioners for the Arts Council-funded Creative Partnerships programme for 18 months.
I have co-authored articles and presented at conferences nationally on the topic of home display practices and the use of museum collections among Pakistani communities in South Yorkshire. As part of this research, I curated the successful 'Ferham Families' exhibition at Rotherham Arts Centre in 2007.
Carolyn Waudby
Senior lecturer
Carolyn is a senior lecturer and also works as a freelance writer, specialising in travel features for newspapers and magazines.
Between 2003 and 2005 she carried out press work for a government minister. Before turning freelance in 2000 she worked in regional newspapers for 15 years. Her last position was as a feature writer and columnist with The Star, Sheffield. Prior to that she specialised in consumer journalism.
Whilst working for the Peterborough Evening Telegraph she received a Newspaper Society award for coverage of a flood disaster in Pakistan. She has written several websites, including an internet guide to Sheffield, and a website for children on the history of the fairground for the University of Sheffield.
Carolyn worked with young people as part of the Government’s Gifted and Talented programme, and was a journalistic advisor for the journalism charity Children’s Express in Sheffield.
She is also a published poet. In 2000 she received an Arts Council grant to produce a pamphlet of poetry based on works of art. The same year a poem on wind turbines was used as the basis of a short film for the big screen. She won third prize in the Ilkley Literature Festival Poetry Competition 2007 and was a winner in the Mslexia Poetry Competition 2009. Also in 2009 she staged a collaborative exhibition of her poems on Cuba with photographs for the Off The Shelf literature festival.
Clare Jenkins
Senior lecturer
Clare is a freelance journalist and national radio broadcaster. As a partner in Pennine Productions, she has produced features, documentaries and short stories for Radio 4, as well as contributing to magazine programmes such as Woman’s Hour.
As a print journalist, she has written for various newspapers and magazines. She’s also edited and written a number of books based on personal testimony, among which are Relative Grief – about people’s experience of bereavement – and A Passion for Priests, about women’s relationships with Roman Catholic priests.
A major interest is oral history - she is a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Oral History Research in Huddersfield, where she co-ordinated a project about the Remembrance Day two-minute silence. Her programme on the same subject was broadcast on Radio 4 on Remembrance Sunday 2009. She also runs an oral history training company, Vox Pops.
Clare is a regular visitor to India, reporting on such varied subjects as the status of widows and lesbians, the Anglo-Indian community, and the cultural significance of the bindi, the red dot on the forehead of married women.
David Farbey
Associate lecturer
David joined the teaching team of the MA Professional Communication after completing his MA in Technical Communication in 2004.
He is module leader for the software documentation module, and co-teaches on the information design and collaborative work modules. He has taught courses on professional writing at Coventry University, and is also a tutor for the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (ISTC)'s Open Learning course in technical communication.
David has been active in the technical communications field since 1994, and he is a Fellow of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators and a Member of the British Computer Society. He has presented at professional technical communications conferences in the UK, Europe, and the USA.
During his wide ranging technical communications career, David has worked both as an independent consultant and contractor and as a staff member and manager. He has written user guides, self-study tutorials, online help systems, reference manuals, policy and procedure guides, and many other types of business documents.
His work covers a wide range of business activities including infrastructure projects, e-learning systems, financial applications, image recognition and processing, enterprise resource planning, and business processes and procedures, as well as copywriting and marketing writing projects. He has worked in a variety of software development environments, and has designed and managed research projects in both the academic and the public sector fields.
Philo Holland
Senior lecturer
He's worked at BBC Radio 5 Live for over ten years, as a reporter, producer, presenter and editor. He spent four years working with Adrian Chiles on his Sony award-winning Saturday sports talk show.
As both a news and sports reporter he’s covered stories across the world, from general elections to World Cups, appearing on Radio 4’s Today programme, 5 Live Breakfast and BBC World Service. Philo's worked with some of the nation’s most respected broadcasters, including Eamonn Holmes, Richard Bacon and Victoria Derbyshire and now divides his time between Sheffield Hallam University and editing the Stephen Nolan show.
Before becoming a journalist he was a linguist, graduating from Durham University with a joint honours degree in Russian and French.
Philo teaches on the BA (Hons) Journalism, BA (Hons) Media and MA International Broadcast Journalism courses.
Julie Gillin
Senior lecturer
Julie is an experienced journalist and public relations (PR) consultant. She worked as a reporter, feature writer and deputy news editor on The Sheffield Star, Sheffield Telegraph and Derbyshire Times newspapers. She has particular interest in health journalism and feature writing.
As a PR consultant, Julie spent two years with media consultancy HR Media working with clients including Sheffield Children’s Hospital, Sheffield United FC, Westfield Health, Community Health Sheffield and Sheffield Health Authority. She was press officer for the Weston Park Hospital Cancer Appeal charity in Sheffield for two years.
As a freelance PR consultant she specialised in the health and charity sector. Her work included providing media training for charities and small businesses.
Julie has taught journalism and public relations at Sheffield Hallam for eight years and is the course leader for MA Public Relations. She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
Julie is currently studying for an MSC in Technology Enhanced Learning, Innovation and Change.
Profiles
Adrian Roxan
Senior lecturer
Dr Geff Green
Senior lecturer
David Clarke
Senior lecturer
Carmel O’Toole
Senior lecturer
Phil Andrews
Senior lecturer
Sue Featherstone
Senior lecturer
Noel Williams
Professor of communication
Rinella Cere
Senior lecturer
Russell Jackson
Course leader for the undergraduate PR courses
Andrew Pollard
Senior lecturer
Carolyn Waudby
Senior lecturer
Clare Jenkins
Senior lecturer
David Farbey
Associate lecturer
Philo Holland
Senior lecturer
Julie Gillin
Senior lecturer
The Digital Design Centre
The Digital Design Centre comprises a suite of 6 IT laboratories (4 PC and 2 MAC) together with the Print Output room, an area for printing medium to large format high quality output on a range of different media. The laboratories have a wide range of software supporting 2D and 3D engineering and creative design applications.
The Digital Design Centre runs a high quality computer printing facility and has the ability to print sizes between A4 and A0 and wide format banners. A3, A2, A1, A0 and Banner photo quality printing is available on a range of papers, as well as AutoCAD type plans ( B & W ) on standard paper.
Technical support team
While you will find excellent facilities throughout, the most valuable resource you will have at your disposal is access to our extremely dedicated, highly experienced technical staff.
All the staff are there to support you during your time in the workshops. The technical team with its professionally qualified staff and practicing professionals, has a wealth of knowledge and expertise across all areas of our provision and comprises engineers, designers, silversmiths and jewellers, fine artists, media arts specialists and IT experts.
The team are committed to using their diverse range of skills and knowledge to support practical aspects of your
course work, whether solving a simple software problem, producing a complex engineering project or creating design work for an international exhibition. There are currently 50 technical staff directly supporting the Technical Resource Centres and the research institutes of the faculty.
