Assoc. Prof. Denisa Hejlová is a prominent Czech scholar and communication consultant. She conducts research, teaches, and consults in the areas of strategic communication, public relations, public affairs, and political communication. From 2011 to 2023, she led the Department of Marketing Communication and PR at Charles University, which hosts one of the Czech Republic’s most sought-after programmes.

She previously held the roles of vice-dean for PR and PR manager at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Hejlova was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in 2014 and studied intercultural communication at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies from 2005 to 2006. She is the author of comprehensive books on public relations and strategic communication tailored for the Czech audience, published in 2015 and 2024 respectively. A regular contributor to academic journals, she has also been a guest lecturer at several universities in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and Japan.

In 2020, she launched the first Czech MA programme in Strategic Communication at Charles University. As of 2023, Dr. Hejlova is the director of the Research Centre for Strategic Communication at the Faculty of Social Sciences within Charles University.

ResearcherID: P-4955-2017

Recent meaningful publications

Hejlová, D. (2021). Tobacco industry lobbying. In P . Harris, A. Bitonti, C. S. Fleisher, & A. S. Binderkrantz (Eds.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs (pp. 1358-1361). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13895-0_231-1

Hejlová, D., & Klimeš, D. (2017). Propaganda in 1980s Czechoslovakia: Life in a ritualised lie. In I. Somerville, O. Hargie, M. Taylor, & M. Toledano (Eds.), International Public Relations: Perspectives from Deeply Divided Societies (1st ed., pp. 173-197). London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-86013-1. (Main author, 60%)

Hejlová, D. (2015). Public relations (1st ed.). Praha: Grada Publishing. ISBN 978-80-247-5022-4.

Hejlová, D., & Klimeš, D. (2019). Propaganda stories in Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s: Believe it or not?. Public Relations Review, 45(2), 217-226.

Kulhánek, A., Hejlová, D., Slíž, M., & Baptistová, A. (2021). Analysis of tobacco industry marketing and media communication in response to the menthol cigarette ban in the Czech Republic in 2020. Adiktologie Journal, 2021/12, 75-83.

Hejlová, D., Schneiderová, S., Klabíková Rábová, T., & Kulhánek, A. (2021). „Užívání necigaret není bez rizika“ aneb Diskurz o zahřívaných tabákových produktech v médiích. Naše řeč, 104(3), 169-185.

Hejlová, D., Schneiderová, S., Klabíková Rábová, T., & Kulhánek, A. (2019). Analysis of presumed IQOS influencer marketing on Instagram in the Czech Republic in 2018-19. Addictology, 7, 7-15.