Why, then, should the subjects display and exhibit design and visual design be added
to the curricula of the degree course in Public Relations? It is now widely accepted that
schools, and even more so academies, should no longer base learning on the mere
transmission of codified knowledge, but that they should become a kind of workshop
for what is “possible” by opening up to whatever is new and unpredictable (even more
so, of course, in an ever-changing world context characterised by globalisation).
Consequently, the implication is that professional competence in Public Relations (the
main aim of the degree course) must be open to all those aspects of knowing and
know-how which are in some way related to the field of communication. In the constant
effort to rethink the criteria used to interpret reality, these dual concepts, knowing and
know-how, are of great importance both from the epistemological and the didactic
points of view.
Obviously, the subjects display and exhibit design and visual design in a degree
course in architecture and/or design are one thing, but they become something else in a
different context. Thus, our starting point was not located in the subjects themselves,
but in the problems which Public Relations have to tackle. The main aim of this
innovation was not to introduce our students to the technical aspects of design and
exhibiting, but rather to bend the subjects to the needs of communication, by gradually
trying to decide with the students how to structure commercial or cultural
communication.
Projects of
organised
communication
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