BA (Honours) Public Relations
Three years full-time
UCAS code • P210
Location • City Campus
Related subjects • Media, PR and journalism • Media arts
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Read about our media PR and journalism teaching team
The best and most creative public relations (PR) campaigns make a positive difference to people's lives. They can improve issues such as health awareness and public safety and be a persuasive force for the public good. More and more organisations, from charities to government and business, now use PR to get their messages across.
Every day, many of the big stories that shape the national and international news headlines are influenced by the work of skilled PR practitioners. From the car maker forced to issue a global safety recall to disgraced celebrities – they all turn to PR to help build and repair their reputations.
It is not about spin but about great writing and verbal skills, critical and creative thinking and understanding how the media works.
This course is delivered by a team which includes national award-winning PR industry specialists, with experience across TV, health, charity, public and private sectors.
If you want a career in a fast changing, exciting and expanding sector, this course equips you with the essential practical skills and knowledge you need as well as giving you a critical perspective on the role of PR in society.
Graduate careers in PR include • media relations • campaigns director • events management • international communications • lobbying • public affairs.
The course focuses on building your understanding of how PR works, from its history and development to the latest PR tools such as social media. You learn how to research, plan, implement and manage a successful PR campaign.
You gain skills including • writing for different media audiences • crisis management • event management • giving presentations • campaign planning • ethics.
You examine and evaluate different theories of PR and engage with current debates including the impact of PR on society and the media. You also study professional issues including ethics and corporate social responsibility, freedom of information and industry codes of conduct.
We have strong personal and professional links with PR practitioners from a range of organisations. You experience working for real clients to produce a portfolio of work to show prospective employers. In your final year you can apply your learning to an external project or complete a dissertation. We also offer placement opportunities for you to gain further industry experience.
During the course you build a portfolio of work which includes • press releases • press cuttings • campaign plans, leaflets and wider professional writing • photo calls. This records your development and improves your employability.
There is also a part-time version of this course.
The professional body for the UK public relations industry, the CIPR, said that this course offers 'challenging study for those aiming for careers in public relations. The course content covers the essential knowledge, skills and standards expected of today’s PR professionals'.
Related courses
You apply for this course through UCAS.
For information on fees and funding see www.shu.ac.uk/study/ug/fees-and-funding
2012/13 academic year
Typically £10,320 a year
2013/14 academic year
Typically £10,320 a year
For further information on fees, scholarships and bursaries see www.shu.ac.uk/international/fees
• essays • reports • electronic assessment • oral presentations • portfolio work • project
For more information or to check the progress of your application phone +44 (0)114 225 5555, fax +44 (0)114 225 2167, e-mail admissions@shu.ac.uk
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 many industry and personal development opportunities and 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 and free online training.
This recognition also allows graduates to become full members of the CIPR without further examination.
Cantor Lecture Theatre
The Cantor lecture theatre opened in 2008 in the state-of-the-art Cantor Building.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Feona Attwood

Professor of sex, communication and culture
Feona Attwood is professor of sex, communication and culture. Her research is in the areas of sex in contemporary culture, and she has particular interests in ‘onscenity’, sexualization, sexual cultures, new technologies, identity and the body, and controversial media.
She is the editor of Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualization of Western Culture (2009) and porn.com: Making Sense of Online Pornography (2010) and the co-editor of journal special issues on Controversial Images (with Sharon Lockyer, Popular Communication, 2009) and Researching and Teaching Sexually Explicit Media (with I.Q. Hunter, Sexualities, 2009).
Her recent published work has focussed on pornography, regulation, sexual agency, new forms of leisure, and research methods. She is co-editing a special issue of Sex Education journal on young people’s sexual cultures with Clarissa Smith, and leading an international research network on onscenity, funded by the AHRC. She is writing about controversial images, the relation between sex, the real and technology, and contemporary debates about the sexualization of young people.
Her current book projects are (with Vincent Campbell, I.Q. Hunter and Sharon Lockyer) Controversial Images and Sex, Media and Technology.
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.
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.
Kirstie Edwards

Associate lecturer
Kirstie has been an associate lecturer teaching on the distance learning MA in Professional Communication at Sheffield Hallam University since 2004. During this time, she has taught on the Communication Theory, Information Design, Collaboration and Ethics, Digital Media and Society and Visual Communication modules.
She was awarded distinction for her MA in Technical Communication in 2001 and continued to study for her PhD at Sheffield Hallam University between 2002 and 2006. Her doctoral research was a socio-linguistic study of e-mail communication during technical writing projects and her examiners were Professor Michaël Steehouder, Professor Lyn Pemberton and Dr Mike Beaken. Kirstie's current research interests focus on the teaching of academic writing and the use of social media in further and higher education.
Kirstie has 20 years of experience as a professional (freelance) writer and editor for commercial and academic organisations across Europe. She has provided training for technical writers in the private sector and tutors professional writers on the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (ISTC)'s Open Learning course in technical communication. She has also provided academic writing tuition to researchers at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and currently teaches academic writing for undergraduate and postgraduate students at Glyndwr University in Wales.
Kirstie has a BSc from the University of Manchester, an MA and PhD in Professional Communication from Sheffield Hallam University, and is currently studying for an MA in Education with Staffordshire University. She is a fellow of the ISTC, a member of the European Association for Teaching of Academic Writing, and has presented at conferences in the UK, Europe, and USA.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Anne-Florence Dujardin

Senior lecturer
Anne-Florence teaches and supervises students on an online masters course in professional communication, building on insights gained during her previous career in software training and communication consultancy.
Before joining Sheffield Hallam University, she worked for a software house in Cambridge and Brussels, providing solutions in documentation, training and communication for clients as diverse as Barclays Bank, Dairy Crest, British Rail, various Government departments, and the European Commission.
These experiences prepared her well to become course leader of the MA programme. As module leader, she teaches reflective practice, communication theory, visual communication, information design, social media use and, until last year, research methods. Typical duties include curriculum design, e-tutoring, and supervision of students working on their masters dissertations and PhD theses.
She is also a member of her Faculty’s Research Ethics Committee. She has been awarded a university teaching fellowship and an associateship with the Centre for Excellence for Promoting Learner Autonomy.
Anne-Florence has a BA and MA in English Literature from the Sorbonne-Paris IV (France), and a MEd from the University of Cambridge. Her PhD research focuses on the educational use of social media. Her research interests are in information design and in computer-mediated communication, including e-learning and social media.
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.
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.
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).
Profiles
Carolyn Waudby
Senior lecturer
Philo Holland
Senior lecturer
David Clarke
Senior lecturer
Noel Williams
Professor of communication
David Farbey
Associate lecturer
Feona Attwood
Professor of sex, communication and culture
Dr Geff Green
Senior lecturer
Julie Gillin
Senior lecturer
Kirstie Edwards
Associate lecturer
Adrian Roxan
Senior lecturer
Phil Andrews
Senior lecturer
Russell Jackson
Course leader for the undergraduate PR courses
Carmel O’Toole
Senior lecturer
Anne-Florence Dujardin
Senior lecturer
Clare Jenkins
Senior lecturer
Sue Featherstone
Senior lecturer
Rinella Cere
Senior lecturer


