I’m just back from the CIPR academic conference in Lincoln which was supported, it seems to me, by three groups.
There were the reflective practitioners: people in PR jobs with the intellect and stamina to take a considered view of their work and to place it in a broader context. There were the practitioner-educators, who tend to draw from experience to inform their teaching and studies. And there were the theoretician-academics, whose studies have superseded their practical experience. The mix of and interplay between the three groups is what makes for a successful event.
Two years ago, when we last met, blogging was not on the conference agenda. This time it was, though there remains some suspicion of it in academic circles. I suspect this is because this instantaneous, unedited medium is the opposite of the traditional peer-reviewed academic paper which may take years to appear in print. I anticipate some progress from the UK PR teaching community in the area of blogging and online publishing in the coming months.
PR Studies 
Those who want a snapshot of blogging’s potential for PR might start here – a http://www.blogads.com/survey/2005_blog_reader_survey.html – a Blogads survey with 30,000 responses in which 75pc saying they read blogs for news they can’t find elsewhere. As Steve Rubel says: “That smells like a big opportunity for the PR industry to secure placements in the blogosphere .”
Novell’s PR director predicted that blogging could entirely replace press releases in 10 years. I highly doubt that, but you can bet the topic will become more and more important to our field.