Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate identify the effectiveness of public relation departments in achieving the competitive advantage in Palestinian universities through attracting new students adopting digital media devices and identify the effectiveness of activities and services that public relation departments provide to attract new students, The study also aimed to shed the light on all digital media devices used to attract new students and achieve competitive advantage in the university, The study used the descriptive survey method and data was gathered through conducting electronic (online) and paper questionnaires, which were, distributed following the statistical analysis for employees whose number amounted to86 in public relation departments in Palestinian universities in Gaza Governorate, The study reached out the following findings:

1. The Palestinian universities, the study sample, depend on design and montage programs, the most important of which are the After Effects program, the InDesign program, the 3D Max program, and the Photoshop program. The recruitment process for new students relied on the visual content "video" in a large way, followed by the content of pictures, then the texts published on the university's electronic pages and their social media pages.
2. public relation department in Palestinian universities plays a vital role that represents the focal point with the aim of persuading the targeted audience of the activities, services and policies of the university that serve mainly the interests of the university and achieve a competitive advantage through attracting new students. This finding ranked high with the average of 93.6 %
3. The public relation department in Palestinian universities organises field visits for high school graduates, encourages them to join their universities and documents the visits via digital media devices. The result ranked high with an average of 95.6%.
4. It is worth mentioning that One of the most important digital media websites used in public relation departments in Palestinian Universities is social media websites for the purpose of designing digital advertising in the form of images and videos that attract the eyes of audience, This result ranked high with an average of 96.6%.
5. One of the indicators for achieving the competitive advantage in Palestinian universities is the sufficient funding universities receive to enhance scientific research and advertising campaigns through/ via digital platforms and other media devices that organise/ design advertising campaigns that serve the interest of universities to attract new students. This result came with an average of 90.6%.
6. One of the strongest points that serves the interests of Palestinian universities is their painstaking efforts to keep up with modern communication technologies and digital development, adopt new majors that match labor market , the average standard of living that helps to attract new students and achieve competitive advantage.

Based on the above mentioned results, the researcher presented/ introduced the following recommendations:

• Raising awareness about the advantages of achieving competitive Advantages for universities among employees in public relation departments in Palestinian universities, exerting painstaking efforts either financially or humanely to increase the level of competition at the local, regional and international levels.
• The importance of enhancing digital technology with its various devices and using it to carry out the tasks of public relation departments in Palestinian universities.
• The willingness of providing Palestinian universities with the adequate infrastructure including technical and media labs and electronic laboratories, enriching digital libraries with different sources of information being accessible to all students without imposing any financial restriction through its online pages.
• Making balance between the main requirements of universities and scientific research and labor market and creating scientific competition as well as assigning specialized committees to follow up/ evaluate the effectiveness of competitive advantage in universities.