Dziewornu-Norvor, W.K.2024-04-152024-04-152022-04http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh:8080/handle/123456789/41626MA. Communication StudiesThis study sought to analyze Ghanaian public relations practitioners’ use of social media and influence on public relations practice. Using the uses and gratification theory and dialogic theory of public relations as a lens, the study sought the views of 20 public relations practitioners. Essentially, the interviews sought information on how public relations deploy social media in their work, how their work is influenced, the challenges associated, and the competencies required to navigate the evolving world of social media and public relations. The study found that public relations practitioners in Ghana were well informed of social media platforms and employed them in their duties and are unanimous in agreement that social media have reshaped mainly the mechanism by which they interact with their publics by bringing them closer to their target audience. It was also revealed that work output and efficiency was positive because practitioners could get to their publics in real-time and interact seamlessly. Finally, the study revealed that practitioners may be under-utilizing social media and may not be reaping the benefits that abound primarily because training in the proper usage and deployment of social media platforms is not abreast with the evolving technology of social media. Despite these significant findings, there were other issues that the study could not address, including the views of organizational publics and the use of the quantitative approach, which would have made it possible to obtain a significant enough sample and thereby make it possible to generalize the findings of the study. Accordingly, the present study recommends that researchers investigate the extent to which social media mediate the relationship between organizations and their publics and find out whether the relationship mediated by social media is stronger or otherwise than the one by traditional/legacy media.enAnalyticSocial MediaPublic RelationsGhanaInfluenceThesis