Routledge New Directions in PR & Communication Research
About the Book Series
Current academic thinking about public relations (PR) and related communication is a lively, expanding marketplace of ideas and many scholars believe that it’s time for its radical approach to be deepened. Routledge New Directions in PR & Communication Research is the forum of choice for this new thinking. Its key strength is its remit, publishing critical and challenging responses to continuities and fractures in contemporary PR thinking and practice, tracking its spread into new geographies and political economies. It questions its contested role in market-orientated, capitalist, liberal democracies around the world, and examines its invasion of all media spaces, old, new, and as yet unenvisaged.
The New Directions series has already published and commissioned diverse original work on topics such as:
- PR’s influence on Israeli and Palestinian nation-building
- PR's origins in the history of ideas
- a Jungian approach to PR ethics and professionalism
- global perspectives on PR professional practice;
- PR as an everyday language for everyone
- PR as emotional labour
- PR as communication in conflicted societies, and
- PR's relationships to cooperation, justice and paradox.
We actively invite new contributions and offer academics a welcoming place for the publication of their analyses of a universal, persuasive mindset that lives comfortably in old and new media around the world.
Emotional Intelligence and Public Relations: EQ is the New IQ
1st Edition
Edited
By Weiwu Zhang
November 07, 2025
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) has emerged as a critical soft skill in public relations, proven essential for performance, leadership, and fostering collaborative organizational cultures. Despite its importance, EQ remains understudied in PR contexts. This groundbreaking volume presents the first ...
Workplace Culture in Mass Communication Industries
1st Edition
By Martina Topić
May 06, 2025
Across communication industries, women face barriers and a Catch-22 situation at all organisational levels and suffer from cultural masculinities. Offering a systematic overview of women’s lived experiences, this book discusses major issues in contemporary communication industries, including public...
Animal Suffering and Public Relations: The Ethics of Persuasion in the Animal-Industrial Complex
1st Edition
Edited
By Núria Almiron
December 18, 2024
Animal Suffering and Public Relations conducts an ethical assessment of public relations, mainly persuasive communication and lobbying, as deployed by some of the main businesses involved in the animal-industrial complex—the industries participating in the systematic and institutionalised ...
Financial Communication: A Critical Assessment
1st Edition
By Keith Butterick
December 12, 2024
This essential guide to financial communication provides a concise critical overview of this increasingly important field. It challenges existing assumptions about the role and significance of financial public relations (PR) and investor relations, and the dominant paradigm of shareholder value. ...
Depth Public Relations: After the Masquerade
1st Edition
By Johanna Fawkes
August 26, 2024
Contemporary global culture, rooted in neoliberalism and free market forces, increasingly emphasises appearance over substance. People and organisations are judged by image and reputation while social media encourages and enables us to develop our own public persona. This book explores the rise of...
Digital Public Relations and Marketing Communication Trends in Africa
1st Edition
Edited
By Anne W. Njathi, Brandi Watkins
June 07, 2024
The uptake of digital media platforms necessitates the need to understand how digital cultures of consumers and brands are unfolding. Despite the increase in usage and adoption of the internet in Africa, there is limited information about digital marketing trends on the continent. This book is ...
Social Media for Progressive Public Relations
1st Edition
Edited
By Outi Niininen
May 27, 2024
This edited book presents a comprehensive, research-led coverage of the progressive ways public relations (PR) and social media is utilised today. It offers innovative research approaches to explore PR and social media initiatives, and in so doing, provides guidance on how to direct PR ...
Strategic Communication in a Global Crisis: National and International Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic
1st Edition
Edited
By Ralph Tench, Juan Meng, Ángeles Moreno
May 27, 2024
This edited volume makes a unique and timely contribution by exploring in depth the topic of strategic communication and COVID-19 from a global perspective. It is widely agreed that effective and timely communication and leadership are crucial to the successful management of any pandemic. With the ...
Towards a New Understanding of Masculine Habitus and Women and Leadership in Public Relations
1st Edition
Edited
By Martina Topić
May 27, 2024
This edited volume analyses leadership in the public relations (PR) industry with a specific focus on women and their leadership styles. It looks at how women lead, the inf luence of the socialisation process on leadership styles, the difference between feminine and masculine leadership styles, and...
Communicating in Extreme Crises: Lessons from the Edge
1st Edition
By Elina R. Tachkova, W. Timothy Coombs
September 25, 2023
This book is an evidence-based approach to handling common, extreme crises. Extreme crises involve strong moral outrage; moral outrage creates situations where traditional crisis communication advice no longer is effective. These extreme crises create unique demands for crisis managers. Moreover, ...
Strategic Communications in Africa: The Sub-Saharan Context
1st Edition
Edited
By Hugh Mangeya, Isaac Mhute, Ernest Jakaza
September 25, 2023
Strategic communication is a pre-requisite for the achievement of organisational goals, and an effective strategic communication plan is vital for organisational success. However, systems and models dominant in the West may not necessarily be best suited for the sub-Saharan Africa reality, where ...
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Affairs in the British Press: An Ecofeminist Critique of Neoliberalism
1st Edition
By Martina Topić
May 31, 2023
An ecofeminist criticism of neoliberalism, this book uses economic growth, CSR and the press coverage of environmental affairs as a case study. The author argues that CSR is part of a wheel of neoliberalism that continually perpetuates inequality and the exploitation of women and Nature. Using an ...