APPLICATION OF NEW MEDIA STRATEGIES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS PRACTICE IN NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY, AWKA, CHUKWUEMEKA ODUMEGWU OJUKWU UNIVERSITY, IGBARIAM AND PAUL UNIVERSITY, AWKA.

Abstract

This study seeks to find out the new media public relations practitioners use for public relations practice in the selected universities, the new media strategy they use, the extent to which they use the new media strategy for public relations practice and the extent to which the new media strategy used by them, determine how the academic and non-academic staff and students of the selected universities react to their PR messages in the new media. The study was anchored on the technological determinant theory and dialogic theory, for its good explanation. In order to ensure the successful completion of this research, the researcher adopted the survey and interview research methods, determined and selected 373 academic and non-academic staff and 397 students of UNIZIK, COOU and Paul University that were studied using the Taro Yamane formula, the Rangan Kamaisan proportional allocation/distribution method, a proportionality formula and the multi-stage sampling technique and used a closed-ended/structured, valid and reliable questionnaire and structured interview as his primary data collection instruments. From the study, it was found, among other things, that Facebook is the mostly utilized new medium by public relations practitioners in the three selected universities. Based on the findings, the study, therefore recommends that there’s need for public relations practitioners to maximize the use of other new media platforms for effective reach and guard against technical glitch that occurs sometimes on Facebook.