"COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT" FOR EMPLOYEES OF PRESS-SERVICES OF STATE AND MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES (CASE STUDY OF DISTANCE LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS)

Modern development of the Russian society is determined not only by market development of economy, but also by desire of Government (at the Federal, regional and local levels) to ensure transparency and regular information on its activities. Legislative, executive and judicial bodies at all levels recognized the need to create a specialized department providing information's availability, and currently press services are organized and effectively function in the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, Central Bank of Russia, Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, commission and other state structures.
The article describes experience of distance learning of specialists of the press-services of government bodies.
Distance course "communication management" is aimed at training of press secretaries for state and municipal authorities, departments, agencies, district administrations and other structures.
Despite the fact that professional activity in the field of public relations (including public sector) provides Federal State educational standard of higher education with respect to "Advertising and public relations", for many practitioners in this area the most relevant is short-term (up to 6 months) program for retraining and improvement of professional skill.
Organization of distance courses on retraining and improvement of skills of spokespersons for state and municipal authorities in the regions of the Russian Federation is due to several factors: firstly, the duration of training (6 months) prevents staff of press-service from leaving workplace and interrupting the process of informing the authorities for such a long period; secondly, functional responsibilities of press secretaries are quite universal and have no regional specificity which make possible to implement a unified program for listeners from different regions; thirdly, format of distance learning enables students to form necessary competences in accordance with their own current tasks.
This article provides review of the implementation of course "Communication management" for employees of press services of state and municipal authorities. Training program, technical means, methodical and didactic technologies and techniques, indicators of satisfaction of trainees according to program results, self-assessment of effectiveness course by instructors and organizers of learning are considered.