Authors

Dr Clea Bourne is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research explores how twenty-first century economies are mediatised through various actors, practices and discourses. Clea is author of Trust, Power and Public Relations in Financial Markets (Routledge, 2017). She has also published widely in a range of journals and edited collections, and is currently writing her second monograph, entitled Public Relations’ Professional Discourses (Palgrave-Macmillan). Clea co-convenes the ‘Financial Capital and the Ghosts of Empire’ network; and convenes the Heretical Finance Reading Group, a public outreach project hosted at Goldsmiths.

Ryan Sosna-Bowd is an award-winning strategic sport management, events, marketing and PR practitioner, who mixes a professional life of practice and academic teaching and learning. Recent work includes advisory to Qatar Foundation, Qatar National Tourism Council, Columbia Sportswear, International Sporting Events and Athletes Europe and GCC region. Prior to this he worked for the Josoor Institute in Doha, Qatar and IMG in London, United Kingdom. He has also lectured at Leeds Beckett University, Manchester Metropolitan University and Leeds University at under/postgraduate levels. He also worked at Weber Shandwick Public Relations and owned 1090 communications, the latter of which he sold in 2004 to Connectpoint PR.

Ezri Carlebach is a writer and consultant with virtual comms agency The PR Network and creative studio GW & Co. Drawing on more than 20 years’ experience of leading in-house comms teams in non-profit, government and FTSE 100 organisations, Ezri delivers public relations, brand strategy and stakeholder engagement consultancy, runs training sessions and workshops, and writes speeches, articles, blogs, reports and reviews. He is a speaker and facilitator at international conferences on business communication, anthropology, education, and arts and culture, and was a Visiting Lecturer in Public Relations and Corporate Communications at the University of Greenwich from 2013 to 2019.

Professor Tim Coombs (PhD Purdue University in Public Affairs and Issues Management) is the George T and Glady H Abell Professor in Liberal Arts in Department of Communication at Texas A&M University. His primary areas of research are crisis communication and CSR including the award-winning book Ongoing Crisis Communication. He is the current editor for Corporation Communication: An International Journal. His research has appeared in Management Communication Quarterly, Public Relations Review, Corporate Reputation Review, Journal of Public Relations Research, Journal of Communication Management, Business Horizons and the Journal of Business Communication.

Dr Scott Davidson is a lecturer at the University of Leicester in the School of Media, Communication and Sociology. Before becoming an academic he worked for over a decade in public affairs and campaigns management for organisations such as AGE UK. He is the current director of the EUPRERA Network on Public Affairs and Lobbying in Europe. He was awarded his PhD by Loughborough University in 2008. His research includes publications on framing and other rhetorical strategies in PR, and on the problems of reforming PR so it becomes a better servant of democratic societies.

Dr Audra Diers-Lawson (PhD, University of Texas at Austin) is a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom. She serves as chair of the Crisis Communication Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) and is the editor for the Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research– the only dedicated journal for the field of crisis communication. Her recent book Crisis Communication: Managing Stakeholder Relationships provides a comprehensive history of the field’s development, contemporary issues, and connects her research on topics like trust, intercultural communication, epidemics, and whistleblowing to focus on how to develop an organisation’s crisis capacity through better stakeholder relationship management. 

Dr Johanna Fawkes PhD is Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield and Visiting Fellow at Leeds Beckett University. She was Principal Research Fellow at Huddersfield (2016–18), leading an international team to produce a Global Capability Framework for Public Relations and Communications Management in conjunction with the Global Alliance. From 1990, Johanna developed undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral degrees in public relations in three UK Universities and in Australia (2011–16), following a career in public sector communication. She has delivered keynote speeches and published articles and chapters on public relations and ethics. Her book, Public Relations Ethics and Professionalism; The Shadow of Excellence, was published by Routledge in 2015 (paperback 2017). She is working on a sequel.

Dr Kate Fitch is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where she coordinates the public relations specialisation. She previously worked at Murdoch University. Her book, Professionalizing Public Relations: History, Gender and Education, offered the first sociological history of Australian public relations in the twentieth century. Her book with Judy Motion, Popular Culture and Social Change: The Hidden Work of Public Relations investigated the impact of public relations on contemporary culture. Kate is the Asia-Pacific regional editor for Public Relations Inquiry.

Professor Finn Frandsen is Professor of Corporate Communication, Department of Management, Aarhus University, Denmark. His primary research interests include organisational crises, crisis management and crisis communication, environmental communication and climate communication, stakeholder and intermediary theory, and the institutionalisation of strategic communication in private and public organisations. He has published articles in CCIJ, International Journal of Business Communication, International Journal of Strategic Communication, Management Communication Quarterly, Public Relations Inquiry, Public Relations Review, Rhetorica Scandinavica, and Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration. He is the co-editor of Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal, Approach (Sage, 2017) and Crisis Communication – Handbooks of Communication Science (Mouton de Gruyter, 2020).

Dr Karen Freberg is an Associate Professor in Strategic Communications at the University of Louisville, where she teaches, researches and consults in social media strategy, public relations and crisis communication. Freberg has written several books including The Roadmap in Teaching Social Media (Amazon, self-published), Digital Media Writing for Strategic Communication (TopHat with Emily Kinsky and Amber Hutchins) and Social Media for Strategic Communications: Creative strategies and research-based applications (with SAGE).

Helen Gill is Founding Director of award-winning B2B marketing agency Engage Comms. Established in 2012, Engage Comms delivers integrated communications strategies and campaigns for ambitious clients in niche sectors including manufacturing and financial services, to enable them to fulfil their long-term potential. Helen has a Masters in PR and experience working in-house and in consultancy comms roles for regional and global organisations. She is an experienced speaker and lecturer and was named CIPR Outstanding Young Communicator Yorkshire & Lincolnshire 2010. In 2019, she founded the ’Internal Comms Network North’ to help SMEs in Northern England harness the power of internal communications.

Professor Anne Gregory is Chair in Corporate Communication at the University of Huddersfield, heading specialist educational and research programmes for clients such as the UK Government and the European Commission. Professor Gregory is a recent Chair of the Global Alliance, has been awarded the Sir Stephen Tallents Medal by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) for her outstanding contribution to the profession and the Pathfinder Award for outstanding research by the US-based Institute of Public Relations. She has authored over 80 books, book chapters and academic and popular journal articles and is an acknowledged world-expert on strategic communication. Her most recent books include Planning and Managing Public Relations Campaigns and Strategic Public Relations Leadership.

Dr Oyvind Ihlen is professor at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo and codirector of POLKOM – Centre for the Study of Political Communication. He has over 130 publications, including Public Relations and Social Theory: Key Figures and Concepts (2009, 2nd expanded edition 2018, with Magnus Fredriksson), the award-winning edited Handbook of Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility (2011, with Jennifer Bartlett and Steve May), and Handbook of Organizational Rhetoric (2018, with Robert L. Heath). Ihlen was President of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) 2016–2017.

Professor Winni Johansen is Professor of Corporate Communication, Department of Management, Aarhus University, Denmark. Her primary research interests include crisis management and crisis communication, social media, communication consulting, environmental communication and the institutionalisation of strategic communication in private and public organisations. She is the co-editor of Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal, Approach (Sage, 2017), International Encyclopedia of Strategic Communication (Wiley-Blackwell, 2018), Crisis Communication – Handbooks of Communication Science (Mouton de Gruyter, 2020). She has published articles in Management Communication Quarterly, CCIJ, International Journal of Strategic Communication, Journal of Communication Management, Public Relations Review, Public Relations Inquiry, Rhetorica Scandinavica and Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration.

Neil Kelley is a Senior Lecturer and Course Director for the Marketing Subject Group at Leeds Business School. Neil is responsible for all undergraduate marketing degrees; Marketing Management, Marketing with Retail Management and Marketing with Advertising Management. In addition to this he is a Chartered Marketer and a Lead Examiner with the Chartered Institute of Marketing for two modules, Digital Marketing and Marketing and Digital Strategy. Neil has co-authored a number of marketing texts, book chapters and published research into marketing education.

Dr Ioannis Kostopoulos is a Reader in Digital Marketing at Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores University. Prior to his current position he has taught Marketing and PR at several universities in the UK, Greece and Italy and has participated in many consulting and research projects. Awarded his PhD in 2012 from Athens University of Economics and Business, he has more than 50 publications, including articles in peer-reviewed journals such as European Management Review, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Information Technology and People and International Journal of Innovation Management. In 2017 he published his first book on Marketing Communications.

Professor Jim Macnamara is Distinguished Professor of Public Communication at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He is also a Visiting Professor at London School of Economics and Political Science, Media and Communications Department, and a Visiting Professor at the London College of Communication. He is internationally recognised for his research into evaluation of public communication and organisational listening, and is the author of more than 70 academic journal articles and book chapters and 16 books including Organizational Listening: The Missing Essential in Public Communication and Evaluating Public Communication: Exploring New Models, Standards, and Best Practice.

Professor Danny Moss Professor of Corporate and Public Affairs at the University of Chester Business School and co-director of the University’s International Centre for Corporate & Public Affairs Research. He led the development of Master’s programmes in Public Relations at the University of Stirling and then at Manchester Metropolitan University and co-founded the annual Global Public Relations Research Symposium. Danny is the co-editor of the Journal of Public Affairs and has published papers in range of journals and has authored a number of books, and book chapters including Public relations: A managerial perspective and International Public relation cases.

Dr Grazia Murtarelli, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Corporate Communication at Università IULM in Milan (Italy), where she teaches Digital Communication Management and Web Analytics. Her research focuses on the analysis of online scenarios and, more specifically, on the following issues: social media-based relationship management, online dialogue strategies, digital visual engagement processes and social media measurement and evaluation. She is the Public Relations Student & Early Career Representative at International Communication Association. She is also a faculty affiliate of the Center of Research for Strategic Communication at Università IULM.

Mirela Polic is a consultant in a public relations agency IMC, Zagreb, Croatia. Mirela is also a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. After she had obtained a Master’s degree in public relations and political communication at the Faculty of Political Science (University of Zagreb), Mirela began her career in public relations in one of the largest Croatian public relations agencies, IMC, where she currently works as a public relations consultant. Mirela is a researcher on the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) project, Women in Public Relations.

Noumaan Qureshi is currently pursuing his doctoral research from University of Mumbai, India, focusing on cultural context of communications for risks and crisis. He has done research work in understanding reputation risks for healthcare organisations. Healthcare is his area of specialisation, with two decades of work experience, including public relations consulting.

Dr Sian Rees is Associate Professor in public relations, marketing and branding and is the current Head of the Department of Media & Communications at Swansea University. During her industry career, Sian worked as Publishing Director for the Stuff and What Hi-Fi? Group of magazines and was managing director of her own marketing and PR consultancy. Industry experience has included developing and implementing strategic PR and marketing campaigns for FMCG, retail, entertainment, medical, education and technology sectors. Sian writes academically on authentic communications, PR and branding in the digital media age.

Dr Natalia Rodriguez Salcedo PhD earned a double degree in Journalism and in Advertising and Public Relations. She is deputy director of the Marketing and Media Management department, and deputy director of the Master’s Degree in Corporate Reputation at the School of Communication of Universidad de Navarra, Spain, where she has been teaching since 2001. She has co-authored two books and published several chapters and articles on the history of public relations in Europe and Spain.

Professor Stefania Romenti PhD is Professor in Strategic Communication and PR at Università IULM (Milan, Italy) and Chair of the Master of Science in Strategic Communication. She is Director of the Executive Master in Corporate Public Relations (IULM) and Adjunct Professor at IE Business School (Madrid). She is Rector’s Delegate for Sustainability and CSR. She is Founder and Director of the Research Center in Strategic Communication (CECOMS) and Member of the Board of the European Association of Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA). Her research focuses on strategic communication, corporate reputation, stakeholder management and engagement, dialogue, measurement and evaluation.

Ramona Slusarczyk is a lecturer in public relations at Newcastle University. A Chartered CIPR Practitioner she has taught public relations and media courses at RMIT International University, Vietnam, The Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE, and worked as a PR professional at a Dubai-based consultancy before returning to her former alma mater in Newcastle in 2017. Ramona has since introduced a new module, Global PR, to the University’s curriculum and co-authored a couple of chapters dedicated to social media influencers, food mediatisation, and cultural identity issues within the EU. Her main research interests focus on international PR, CSR and nation branding.

Dr Martina Topić is a Senior Lecturer in Public Relations in Leeds Business School. Martina currently leads three projects, a British Academy funded project on women in the advertising industry, a EUPRERA project on women in public relations and a HEFCE funded project on Women Journalists. She is a member of the editorial board of several academic journals including Sociology (British Sociological Association) and she is an editor of the section ‘Culture, Media and Film’ of Cogent Arts and Humanities Open Access journal (Taylor and Francis). More information on her projects and publications can be found at https://www.martinatopic.com.

Professor Dejan Verčič is Professor, Head of Department of Communication and Head of Centre for Marketing and Public Relations at the University of Ljubljana, and Partner in strategic consulting and communication company Herman & partnerji d.o.o., Slovenia. He received his PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. He has recently received the Pathfinder Award, the highest academic honour bestowed by the Institute for Public Relations (IPR) in New York, and he was named a Distinguished Public Relations Scholar by the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA). Since 1994 he has organised an annual International Public Relations Research Symposium – BledCom.

Jonathan Ward is a lecturer in public relations at Newcastle University and course director for the MA in Media and Public Relations. He leads modules on PR theory, financial communications and postgraduate research. Prior to teaching, Jonathan worked as an award-winning regional journalist specialising in local government and then as a PR practitioner in the charity sector. He founded his own PR agency in 2006 and continues to provide consultancy for businesses and community groups. Jonathan’s interests focus on community engagement, media relations and sports PR. He is a member of the CIPR and Fellow of the HEA.

Professor Tom Watson is emeritus professor of public relations in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University. He ran a successful PR consultancy for 18 years and was chairman of the UK’s Public Relations Consultants Association from 2000 to 2002. Awarded his PhD in 1995 from Nottingham Trent University, Tom has written books, book chapters and a wide range of peer-reviewed academic papers in international academic journals. He established the annual International History of Public Relations Conference in 2010 and has edited the seven-volume National Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices series for Palgrave Macmillan.

Dr Jon White is a visiting professor at Henley Business School, University of Reading and honorary professor, Cardiff University School of Journalism, Media and Culture, began his career in communication roles with the Government of Alberta, Canada, progressing through university positions in Canada and the UK to independent consultancy for organisations including large corporations and international governmental organisations. Author of books and journal articles on public relations, he is an Honorary Fellow of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations and holds a doctorate in psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Iwan Williams is a Public Relations lecturer at Swansea University. Prior to his entry into academia in 2013, he spent five years as Head of Media, Brand and e-democracy in the National Assembly for Wales. With over 20 years’ experience as a strategic communications practitioner, he managed multimedia PR, marketing and advertising communications campaigns for organisations such as the Royal Navy, Microsoft and the government’s Central Office of Information. As well as extensive experience of working in the private and public sectors in the UK, he has many years’ experience of international communications in the USA, Australia and New Zealand.

Dr Markus Wiesenberg is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Communication Management at Leipzig University and freelance PR Consultant with Wiesenberg Communications. In his PhD project he examined the strategic communication of the German mainline churches and studied the non-profit area from diverse angels. During this time, he was a doctoral fellow of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) and managed the European Communication Monitor (ECM). His focal points in practice and research are non-profit and startup communication as well as new trends in strategic communication (e.g. Big Data, Automated and Algorithmic PR).

Professor Paul Willis is Chair of Corporate Communication at the University of Huddersfield. He was previously Director of the Centre for Public Relations Studies at Leeds Business School. Before joining academia Paul was a board director in the PR consultancy sector advising organisations including BMW, BT, Proctor & Gamble, Walmart, UK Sport and The Football Association. In 2016, he was appointed a member of the Government’s Future Communication Council by the UK Cabinet Office and Prime Minister’s Office. Paul is the co-author of Strategic Public Relations Leadership and his other published research can be found in the field’s leading journals and textbooks.