UTAR Faculty of Arts and Social Science’s Department of Public Relations lecturer, Pong Kok Shiong delivered a talk titled “The Future of Public Relations” to a group of postgraduate Diploma in Public Relations students from Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand on 11 October 2021 via Microsoft Teams.  

As one of the international panellists of the session, Pong and the other panellists shared their knowledge on topics such as the importance of research, culture and ethic, the advancement of technology, changing media landscape, internal communication, diversity, content and stakeholders’ engagement.

Pong pointed out the need to recognise public relations as a profession. He added that there are issues and challenges that academics and practitioners have to sit down and discuss. Furthermore, he also encouraged future practitioners to equip themselves with the knowledge of the latest technology like Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. Integrating these skills in daily practice enable the practitioners to predict the crisis by monitoring the public sentiments, attitude and perceptions. Lastly, with the amount of information received by an individual every day, creativity in content creation has also become crucial. Practitioners must be able to engage with the public through the storyline.

Other invited speakers were Head of the School of Communication of Atma Jaya Catholic University, Indonesia Assoc Prof Dr Dorien Kartikawangi, former Secretary of the Global Alliance and Public Relations Practitioner Catherine Arrow, and Chief Executive Public Relations Institutes of New Zealand Elaine Koller. The session was moderated by Assoc Prof Dr Petra Theunissen from Auckland University of Technology.