The levels of intercultural competences of students of public relations

U današnjem globaliziranom svijetu, interkulturološka komunikacija je postala važan aspekt života ljudi. Kako bi ljudi bili u mogućnosti razumjeti jedni druge, potrebno je poznavati i razumjeti druge kulture osim vlastite. Društvo se mora adaptirati promjenama i naučiti kako biti obziran prema kulturama koje su različite od vlastite. Stoga bi mediji trebali imati moć formiranja kolektivne svijesti društva jer su glavni način dobivanja informacija o stanju u svijetu. Mediji bi trebali imati jednu od glavnih uloga u poboljšanju razvoja interkulturalizma. Potrebno je razviti svijest o toleranciji drugih kultura kako bi se razlike, ali i sličnosti, među kulturama mogle spoznati, cijeniti i razumjeti. Kako bi se to postiglo, potrebno je usmjeriti fokus prema djelatnicima odnosa s javnošću, medijskim djelatnicima i menadžerima koji posluju na globalnoj razini, koji su interkulturološki kompetentni i tolerantni jer oni su ti koji pomažu pri formiranju mišljenja javnosti o drugim kulturama. Upravo zato poruke koje se odašilju javnosti moraju biti informirajuće, objektivne i istinite kako bi javnost mogla stvoriti vlastito mišljenje. Cilj ovog rada je istražiti razine interkulturološke kompetencije studenata odnosa s javnošću, odnosno utvrditi stupanj otvorenosti, poznavanja i prihvaćanja drugih kultura. Upitnik o procjeni interkulturološke kompetencije je ispunilo 58 studenata putem interneta. Rezultati su pokazali kako ispitanici imaju srednju i umjereno visoku razinu interkulturološke kompetencije. Uočene su i određene spolne razlike gdje su žene pokazale nešto višu razinu znanja i otvorenosti prema drugim kulturama, a muškarci su postigli višu razinu prihvaćanja.In today's globalized world, intercultural communication has become an important aspect of people's lives. In order for people to be able to understand each other, it is necessary to know and understand other cultures other than their own. Society must adapt to change and learn how to be respected in cultures that are different from oneself. Therefore, the media should have the power to form a collective consciousness of society and the main way of obtaining information about the state of the world. The media should have one of the major roles in improving the development of interculturalism. There is a need to develop awareness of the tolerance of other cultures, in order to comprehend, appreciate and understand the differences and similarities between cultures. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to focus the focus on public relations workers, media professionals and globally operating managers who are intercultural competent and tolerant because they are the ones that help shape public opinion about other cultures. That is why messages sent to the public must be informative, objective and truthful so that the public can create their own opinions. The aim of this paper was to investigate the levels of intercultural competences of students of public relations i.e. to determine the degree of openness, knowledge and acceptance of other cultures. The question of intercultural competence assessment was met by 58 students via Internet. The results have shown that respondents have a mostly moderate and moderately high level of intercultural competence. There were also certain gender differences where women showed a somewhat higher level of knowledge and openness to other cultures, and men have achieved a higher acceptance level