Public relations scholar recipient of national honor

Friday, January 18, 2013

Derina R. Holtzhausen, professor and director of the OSU School of Media and Strategic Communications, has received a national award for her book Public Relations as Activism: Postmodern Approaches to Theory & Practice.

The PRIDE Awards, given by the Public Relations Division of the National Communications Association, named Holtzhausen’s publication its 2012 Outstanding Book.

“Dr. Holtzhausen has established a solid body of work in top journals and produced the first full-length book study on the field, which is highly rated around the world,” says David McKie, professor at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, who is an expert in the field of international business communications. “Her practice of frequently publishing on the topic of postmodern public relations has brought her recognition and admiration from her colleagues.”

Holtzhausen began serving as the department’s director in 2008 and played an integral role in its renaming in 2010. Under her advisement, the OSU School of Journalism and Broadcasting was renamed the OSU School of Media and Strategic Communications in order to more accurately describe its mission.

She earned a bachelor’s at the University of Pretoria, Africa; a master’s at the University of South Africa; and a doctorate at Rand Afrikaans University, now Johannesburg University in South Africa.

The OSU School of Media and Strategic Communications is one of 24 departments in the College of Arts and Sciences. For more news, visit http://cascommunications.okstate.edu.