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It seemed to happen
overnight. What we know as "The Net" has grown from a crude computer
experiment to exchange research data among a few college professors
into a worldwide communication network accessible to billions.
In his book: Real
Time: Preparing for the Age of the Never Satisfied Customer,
Regis McKenna observed: "Databases that once were accessible to
only a few are now on-line, bringing untold volumes of information--ranging
from sports statistics, news articles, government demographics,
data, library holdings, and tourist information to newspaper and
magazine subscriptions, astronomy pictures, rock concerts, and
Shakespeare's complete works to broad communities of interest."
2
Today's students grew
up using the Internet. They expect to find information quickly.
For many high school kids the Internet is their only source for
research. 3
An interview with
professor Ellen Freedman, a pioneer in the use of the Internet
as a teaching tool, underscored the value of the Internet to educators.
Her four-year-old math help site www.mathpower.com
receives 900,000 hits per month, enjoys a worldwide audience and
has won several awards.
"Students are much
different today than they were less than three years ago," Freedman
said. "In the beginning, only technical types used my site, today
virtually all of my students are Web savvy.
"Students expect to
find what they are looking for on the Web." Freedman believes
that it is imperative that academic disciplines maintain a Web
presence. "They (students) are used to the Internet. If you want
to reach them, you have to have a Web site."
A Graduate Project
www.PRhistrory.com
was a graduate project to design and build a public relations
history Web site. Roughly 70 percent of the project involved the
creation of the physical Web site and 30 percent involved collecting
and assembling the content data.
Purpose
The primary
purpose for creating www PRhistory.com was to provide online information
about the public relations profession.
The
Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) lists
6000 public relations students attending more than 200 colleges
and universities in the United States. It is hoped that a reference
tool like www.PRhistory.com will be useful to students studying
public relations.
High school students
are actively engaged in using the Internet to research colleges
and careers.6
Publishing information about the public relations profession on
the WWW may have a positive impact on enrollment in collegiate
PR programs.
Lastly, many people
harbor negative misconceptions about public relations. In a speech
to the 1992 AEJMC Convention on the future of public relations,
PR pioneer Edward Bernays stated:
"I feel enormous pride and admiration for the development in public
relations in this century, and have great faith in its future
into the next.
"It is a vocation
that I hope one day will be elevated to a profession. As of late,
however, public relations has suffered from the public's distrust.
It is a supreme irony that the vocation that has done so much
to foster greater understanding between the private and public
interest must now face its own tarnished reputation in the eyes
of the public it attempts to serve." 7
www.PRhistory.com
will try to set the record straight.
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