31st Kenneth Owler Smith Symposium on Public Relations

The Kenneth Owler Smith Symposium is USC Annenberg’s annual overview of the public relations industry. It has been the premier event for public relations students and practitioners in Southern California since its inception in 1990.

This year’s theme is “Politics, Polarization and Purpose.” The USC Center for PR will explore the issues that are creating a dangerous level of polarization in our country and discuss how communication professionals can leverage their role in business and society to foster collaboration. We believe polarization is a communications problem that can only be solved if those responsible for communicating work together to change the dialogue. 

Our program will feature:

• Keynote from Robert Gibbs, former Obama White House communications director and current senior counsel at Bully Pulpit Interactive.
• Discussion led by USC Center for Public Relations Director Fred Cook on measuring the impact of polarization across a variety of controversial topics and predicting what emerging issues will impact the communication profession in the future.  

Additional panelists TBA.

The online discussion will begin at 5 p.m. PT, followed by a moderated live Q&A with viewers.

RSVP to join the webinar below, or watch the live stream here when the event starts.