THE IDENTITY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS EDUCATION: AN ASSESSMENT ON COMMUNICATION FACULTIES IN TURKEY AND IN BALTIC COUNTRIES

The indicators of an institution's identity are behavior, philosophy and design that come into existence within that institution and also the culture which is in interaction with these factors. All of these factors can be handled with regard to the identity of public relations profession. This study aims to manifest the identity of public relations education within the context of the elements comprising corporate identity (educational design, behavior, philosophy, culture and communication). The items in the questionnaire have been designed to be able to make inferences about these issues. Accordingly, Turkey, which has reached the condition of a newly industrialized country, and Latvia, a developing country in the Baltic Region, and Estonia as a developing country constitute the universe of research. Considering that professional criteria are universal, taking these countries as the sampling of this research through a case study results from the fact that the respective countries display a difference from the others with regard to their economic and social status 20 years ago and their free market mobility after getting separated from the USSR. Therefore, the data gathered about these countries are compared with those related to Turkey. A questionnaire was sent via link to the e-mail addresses of academics who are teaching in public relations field in the respective countries. According to this study, in which the three countries are compared, public relations is seen as a profession the most in Turkey. Communication faculties in Turkey, which are providing education in the field of public relations, consider this profession along with the ` problem-solving process facilitator' role while the faculties in Latvia and Estonia give more weight to the ` communication facilitator' role. It has also been found that as for the degree of importance with regard to the roles of public relations practitioners is concerned, ` being a part of management and have a voice in the strategic decision- making process of the management' is of primary importance for the participants from the three countries.