Fundamentals in Public Communication

The increase in the production, storage, use and dissemination of information by public institutions has led to a similar increase in the expectations of citizens in their roles as both providers and receivers of this information. In this context, the communication of public sector institutions has taken an increasingly important role in the relationships between all societal stakeholders.

This course will focus on these specificities in addressing the realities of administrations, governments as well as non-profit and international organisations in their communication strategies. The focus will be both Swiss and international. A first section of the course will introduce the fundamentals of communication and as they have developed and are now implemented in the public sector. A second section will address three of the main aspects of communication: institutional communication, internal communication and crisis communication. A third section will focus on the specific tools of communication (public relations, publicity, etc.), as well as on the evaluation of their success.