CALL FOR PAPERS

31st African Public Relations Association annual conference
APRA Rwanda 2019 | Theme: Africa & Storytelling

Introduction

The African Public Relations Association (APRA) will be having its annual conference in Kigali, Rwanda May 13-17 with the theme “Africa & Storytelling”. Based on this, some sub-themes have been identified to enable potential speakers choose areas in which they may wish to make in-depth presentations.

This year’s conference will be exploring the exciting and unique African communication culture of storytelling in addressing the current issues and challenges of public relations and development in the continent. Presenters/speakers are expected to discuss compelling story telling and content generation, strategic positioning, ethical practices, fake news, alternative facts, crisis management, dispute reputation, security awareness, competitiveness, social responsibility, self-regulation and a heightened focus on global governance initiatives.

You may wish to consider any of the listed subject areas for your presentation as many of our members are regularly confronted with such issues in the discharge of their professional responsibilities. The list is not exhaustive, and other suggestions within the context of the theme and sub-theme are welcome.

• Traditional African Storytelling and the social media phenomenon
• The business of persuasion
• Ethical issues in public relations profession
• Power and Impact of Visual Communication in storytelling
• The advent of emotional intelligence & Artificial intelligence in effective storytelling
• Storytelling in public relations and advertising
• Trends in public relations
• Research as a tool for effective storytelling
• Branding and storytelling
• The communication “Ws” and “H”
• In-house Versus Out-house practice: Finding Synergy
• Case studies of application, involvement or deployment of public relations strategies to address socio-economic development issues in Africa
• The influence of new media and technology on the practice of public relations on the continent.

We invite members to choose topics that best suit to their areas of specialization as well as to nominate speakers for the above sub-themes based on the stated guidelines below.

Guidelines

• Potential speakers are expected to submit an abstract of not more than 250 words or less not later than Thursday February 28, 2019.
• Abstracts will be assessed after the closing date and notifications will be sent to selected speakers on Friday March 15, 2019.
• Actual presentations should be submitted within three weeks of notification latest Friday April 05,2019.
• The paper/presentation in power point must clearly reflect the issues, challenges, public relations techniques or trends engaged results achieved. The use of videos, sound bites and infographics is encouraged to aid audience engagement programme.
• All submissions are to be accompanied by a brief profile of 100 words
• All submissions should be made to faculty@afpra.org and info@afpra.org

Faculty   Robyn de Villiers
Dr. Wole Adamolekun
Jane Gitau

Contact info@afpra.org
Phone Number: +2348171350933 – Taiwo
+2348052192455 – Debo