Master’s (MS) in Public Relations and Corporate Communication

Public Relations and Corporate Communications both seek to distill and simplify often complex or contradictory situations into meaningful and impactful communications.  The intended audience may be internal stakeholders such as employees, or external stakeholders such as journalists and legislators.   These critical functions within a corporation both provide well-researched and insightful communications that leverage fact-based information and opinion to help shape how people understand and interpret the actions of a company or brand or organization.

Public Relations is charged with managing the reputation of a brand, company or organization holistically across multiple stakeholders. Increasingly these many “publics” that the PR professional needs to serve, express their opinion on social media, engage with brands through social media, and look to a company or organizations statements on social media as a guide to better understanding their position on important social, political, and economic issues.  

Public Relations and marketing work very closely together within a company or an agency to provide a holistic and integrated set of communications to the consumer and a broad range of critical stakeholders.   Public Relations directly supports the reputation management of a brand or company, especially among thought leaders and key opinion-makers and serves the company at critical moments like crisis communications.  Marketing aims to create, capture, and communicate the value of a brand and help generate demand for the products and services of the company among customers and potential consumers, establishing the benefits that are desirable and differentiated from the competition.

Graduates of our MS Public Relations and Corporate Communication degree work in a broad range of organizations — including start-ups and technology-driven companies, established consumer brands, communications and PR agencies, non-profit or charitable groups, and government or trade associations,   Our graduates enter the field with positions like Account Executive, PR Coordinator, Media Relations Manager, Social Media Manager, Manager Corporate Communications etc. and our alumni hold positions like Senior Vice President in the agency world and Global Head of Communications within a brand.

New York City is the home to a large number of advertising, marketing, and public relations agencies and a significant number of brands across multiple industries like healthcare, financial services, professional services, packaged goods, direct-to-consumer, hospitality, fashion and beauty.  The city also acts as a global hub for many companies and industries and more broadly ’trends’ and technology developments.  New York City attracts some of the leading professionals in their field who live and work in the area, and that concentration of talent and creativity ensures the city, its universities, its trade associations, and affinity organizations are constantly active and engaged with the latest professional and academic thinking in Public Relations and Communications.