Applying a Social Network Perspective to Public Relations Pedagogy: Examining the Relationships that Will Build the Profession

Many academics can recall relationships with instructors, classmates, and professionals who were influential in their education and learning. Dewey (1938) wrote that learning is facilitated by the interactions one has through relationships. Sandler and Hoffman (1992) asserted that educator-student relationships significantly influence the classroom dynamics, students' learning, and career paths among other outcomes. Relationships are central to pedagogy (Barkley, 2010). Relationships form in the classroom between educators and students, and among students. Educators in the professional field of public relations know that students benefit from relationships outside the classroom with practitioners (i.e. internships) and professional associations (i.e. Public Relations Student Society of America) (Coombs & Rybacki, 1999). Over time, educators' relationships with students transition into relationships with practitioners when former students begin their careers. Public relations scholarship recognizes the importance of relationships (cf. Ferguson, 1984; Heath, 2013); it is time for scholars of pedagogy to examine more fully how relationships influence public relations education.To accomplish this task, this essay first explains the social network perspective (SNP) and introduces the concept of a learning network. The second section applies three network theories and concepts-strong and weak ties, centrality and prestige, and social capital-to public relations students' relationships in the learning network. Next, this essay discusses structural holes theory (Burt, 1992, 2001) in relation to public relations educators' role in a learning network. Testable hypotheses are posed for public relations pedagogy researchers using the SNP. The final section poses directions for future research using the social network perspective in public relations pedagogy. This essay demonstrates the value of the SNP to enhance public relations educators' teaching and long-term relationships with practitioners as they guide them from students, to practitioners, to leaders in the profession of public relations. The essay that follows provides a roadmap for studying public relations pedagogy within a network perspective.PUBLIC RELATIONS EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL NETWORK PERSPECTIVEA social network perspective offers the opportunity to examine individuals and the relationships among them by considering how people are influenced by their network of relationships (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). This section of the essay defines the social network perspective, begins to focus on the relationships in pedagogy, and transitions to a consideration of students' and educators' relationships inside and outside of the classroom.Defining a Social Network PerspectiveSNP is a distinct approach that places relationships as the primary unit of analysis. Whereas traditional social science is concerned with the attributes of units (i.e. individuals' characteristics and perceptions), SNP is concerned with the relationships between units (Monge & Contractor, 2003). Units are referred to as nodes in network terminology, which may be students, faculty, staff, student organizations, etc. who are connected by relationships known as links or ties. The units and relationships among them form a network.A network is "a finite set or sets of actors and the relation or relations defined in them" (Wasserman & Faust, 1994, p. 20). Take for instance a classroom, the relationships students have with other students creates a network. Figure 1 illustrates the concepts of a network and the focus on relationships. Relationships are the conduits for the information and knowledge exchanged in a learning network. SNP recognizes that individuals are interdependent and that opportunities (and consequences) are not isolated to a single person but available to others (Yang & Taylor, forthcoming). Network researchers have studied and theorized the consequences and opportunities based on (a) the positions of individuals in networks, (b) the nature of relationships among individuals, (c) the resources available to individuals through connections to others, (d) the flow of information and social capital, and (e) the structures of networks (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). …