How To Become a Publicist

What is a Publicist? 
A publicist is someone that is hired to represent and manage all media relationships for their client. They essentially as act as a barrier between the public, and the media. Within the entertainment industry, there is a large group of divisions that all work to promote a production. Within this large group, you will find publicists. Publicists are experts on demographics, press targeting and such like. In this article, we will be discussing the role of the publicist, and the skills you will need to become one.

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Student View: What Happens After You Graduate?

Sharon Boyd looks at the first steps to take when graduating from a Media degree:

What Happens After You Graduate?

So you’ve spent three years studying the likes of Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno and W. J. T. Mitchell alongside writing scripts, shooting on a Sony HDW750P or a Canon 7D, colour correcting in Final Cut Pro or Avid, and learning to analyse and think critically about the media world. Now what? For some of you it might be a case of having a night on the piss and sitting on your arse for the remainder of the summer, maybe applying to the odd job. For others, perhaps you would rather not waste your £27,000 costing 2:1 degree by living off dole money and continuing the typical student life of sleeping all-day and instead actually start making yourself as employable as possible by getting a foot in the door and beginning your career in the media industry.

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Student View: Do You Really Need a Media Degree?

Sharon Boyd takes a look at whether a Media degree is really necessary in order to start a career in TV and film production:

Do You Really Need a Media Degree?

You study a media based degree and therefore consider yourself to be a media practitioner, maybe you know how to cut a few clips together and add a couple of effects in Final Cut Pro? Maybe you can snap a few photographs on a ‘real’ camera rather than using Instagram? Or maybe you can sit down and instantly write what you believe to be an award winning script? I’m going to stop you there. This does not make you an editor, or a photographer, or a scriptwriter. Maybe you aren’t an amateur, but neither are you a professional, well not quite yet anyway.

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Student View: How To Find The Media Course For You

Sharon Boyd takes a look at the huge range of different university courses available to those looking to start out in the media industries:

How To Find The Media Course For You

It is clear that there are a wide range of media based degrees that exist and every University course is going to differ in what they teach you and how they teach you. Some degrees tend to be heavily theory based, while others focus more on the practical aspects of the media, and still others blend both theory and practice together. When researching what degree to choose prospective students need to understand what they are actually applying to do, and often there is a bombardment of search results which can make it hard to know where to start.

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