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6 July 2026
Leadership transition in the EUPRERA Women in Public Relations Network

EUPRERA is pleased to announce a leadership transition in the Women in Public Relations Network.

After founding and leading the network, Martina Topić-Rutherford (University of Alabama, USA) is passing the leadership to Maria João Cunha (ISCSP – Universidade de Lisboa), who has served as the network’s coordinator in Portugal. Martina will continue her important work within EUPRERA as coordinator of the Master Award and in her role as joint Head of the Scientific Committee, while Maria João will take forward the network’s mission of advancing research on women, gender, and public relations across national and professional contexts.

We warmly thank Martina for creating and developing this important network, and for the exceptional energy, commitment, and productivity with which she has led its activities. We also wish Maria João every success as she takes forward the network’s work and opens a new chapter in its development.

Profile

Maria João Cunha is an Associate Professor at ISCSP – Universidade de Lisboa, where she teaches Gender Studies and Communication Sciences and coordinates the Communication Sciences Department. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Sciences (specialisation in Sociology of Communication) from Universidade Aberta, a master’s degree in Sociology, and a B.A. in Social Communication, both from ISCSP-ULisboa.

She is a co-founding member of CIEG – Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies, Portugal’s only research centre fully dedicated to gender studies, where she currently serves as Director after previously holding the role of Deputy Director.

Her research focuses on the intersection of gender and communication, with particular attention to the professional realities of public relations and communication practitioners. Her most recent work includes the subjective well-being of Portuguese PR practitioners (Journal of Communication Management, 2025), examining professional barriers across gender and career stages, while her contribution to Gender and Freelancing in the Communication Industries (Emerald, 2025) identified key trends and research gaps regarding the precariousness and gendered expectations faced by freelance communication professionals. She has also recently published on gender bias in the careers of female journalists and on gendered representations in the media. She has supervised undergraduate and master’s theses, and currently supervises eight Ph.D. candidates, several funded by FCT scholarships. She has also participated in several national and EU-funded projects on gender issues.

Message and invitation

I am taking over the leadership of EUPRERA’s “Women in Public Relations” network after serving as the coordinator in Portugal, a transition I embrace not only with honour, but with a clear sense of the responsibility it carries: continuing and building on the work Martina Topič created with this network. My priority going forward is to grow its cross-national reach and turn it into an even stronger platform for comparative, intersectional research on gender research focused on women in PR.

As one strand of this work, I am guest editing a Special Issue on “Women in Mass Communication Industries” for Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook, and its thematic lines point to directions I believe the network itself may expand into: the motherhood penalty and work-life conflicts in high-pressure communication environments; PR women freelancing and precarity; organisational accountability around harassment and safety; intersectionality – how race, class, age, and other axes of inequality compound gendered disadvantage in PR; feminist collective action; and the emerging risks of AI and algorithmic bias for women in communication work. I welcome contributions from colleagues across the network and the association on any of these fronts, particularly research that is cross-national and comparative.

If you are researching women, gender, PR, or communication professions and would like to be part of this network, I would love to hear from you.

– Maria João Cunha

Get in touch with Maria João Cunha │ Visit the Network Page

27 March 2026
#EUPRERApeople – Tasos Theofilou

Tasos Theofilou is a Principal Academic in Public Relations at the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University, United Kingdom. His research focuses on strategic and organisational communication, with particular emphasis on sponsorship, the history of public relations, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). He also examines crisis communication and the role of public relations in shaping organisations, institutions, and societies.

Tasos serves as Chair of the International History of Public Relations Conference (IHPRC). He is guest editor of several special issues on the history of public relations in journals such as Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Public Relations Review, and the Journal of Public Relations Research. He is series editor of History of PR (Routledge) and co-editor of the New Directions of PR series (Routledge). He is the editor of the book Women in PR History (Routledge, 2020) and co-editor of Histories of Political Public Relations: From Propaganda to Public Health (Routledge, 2025).

Within academia, Tasos has held several leadership roles, including Programme Leader and Programme Director, and has led validation and revalidation processes for academic programmes. He also served as Head of the Corporate and Marketing Communications Department at Bournemouth University.

Beyond his institutional roles, Tasos contributes to the wider professional and academic community. He is an External Examiner and Accredited Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and serves as Network Leader of the European Public Relations History Network (EPRHN) within EUPRERA.

Research topics

His key research areas include PR, crisis communication, and sponsorship.

Teaching topics

In addition to research, Tasos teaches numerous topics, including but not limited to sponsorship, history of PR, and CSR.

Recent meaningful publications
12 February 2024
#EUPRERAtalks: Women in PR History
Women in PR History

Date and Time:
Monday, February 19, 2024, 4 pm @ US Central Time Zone
Monday, February 19, 2024, 11 pm @ Central European Time
Tuesday, February 20, 9 am @ Australian Eastern Standard Time
What to expect from the webinar

This webinar will be on telling “her-story” in the field of public relations.
There has been only scarce reference to how women have shaped the area of communication and public relations even though historically their role can be traced back into centuries.
Either through nature or nurture women excelled at a national and international level leaving a mark, laying the foundations and of course contributing/leading developments.
Dr Topics, Dr Fitch and Dr Theofilou will try to change the discourse by presenting different cases of women in PR history from around the world and in various industries.

 

Speakers

Dr Martina Topic, University of Alabama, US
Dr Martina Topić is an associate professor in PR leadership at the University of Alabama, College of Communication and Information Sciences, Department of Advertising and PR, USA. She is editor-in-chief of Corporate Communications and Northern Lights journals and editor-in-chief of the book series ‘Women, Economics and Labour Relations’. She is an author of Workplace Culture in Mass Communication Industries (Routledge, 2023) and CSR and Environmental Affairs in the British Press (Routledge, 2021). She is a member of the American Sociological Association, British Sociological Association, and EUPRERA.

Dr Kate Finch, Monash University, AUS
Dr Kate Fitch is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University, Australia. Her research foregrounds critical and sociocultural understandings of public relations, drawing on historical, feminist and social justice perspectives. Her first monograph, Professionalizing Public Relations: History, Gender and Education (Fitch, 2016) remains the only book-length, historical investigation of the industry in Australia. Her second book, Popular Culture and Social Change: The Hidden Work of Public Relations (Fitch & Motion, 2021) offers a critical account of the broader societal impact of public relations. Dr Fitch is the co- editor for Public Relations Inquiry.

Dr  Tasos Theofilou, Bournemouth University, UK
is Principal Academic in Public Relations at the Faculty of Media and Communication, at Bournemouth University (BU), UK. He is Chair of the International History of Public Relations Conference (IHPRC), guest editor of multiple special issues focusing on the history of public relations (namely with CCIJ, PR Review, JPRR ) and editor of book entitled “Women in PR History”, published by Routledge 2020. Tasos has held various managerial positions within academia such as leadership of academic programmes and Head of Corporate & Marketing Communications (academic) Department at Bournemouth University. He is an External Examiner for the Charted Institute of Public Relations and member of EUPRERA.

Duration

1 hour

 

24 January 2024
#EUPRERAtalks: Leadership and Wellbeing in Communication Industries

#EUPRERAtalks series dives into one of the latest trends in the field: how to be a excellent leader, one that ensures a workplace characterized by wellbeing and supportiveness.

Leadership and Wellbeing in Communication Industries
Date: January 30, 2024, Tuesday
Time: 4:00 pm CET
What to expect from the webinar

This webinar will discuss wellbeing in communication industries with respect to leadership and workplace culture. The speakers will discuss original research findings collected as part of the EUPRERA research network ‘Women in PR’ where the research team surveyed communication practitioners generally. Panelists will discuss what constitutes excellent leadership, how practitioners assess the supportiveness of their managers, and what wellbeing issues they report. The webinar will run as a round table discussion with Q&A at the end. The coordinator of the webinar is Dr Martina Topić (University of Alabama, US) who also leads the EUPRERA research network.

 

Speakers

Dr Anca Anton, University of Bucharest, Romania
Anca Anton is Senior lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences, University of Bucharest, Romania, where she teaches marketing communications, corporate public relations, business communication and digital writing. Her research covers the transformations of the PR/comms profession and industry, the intersection of communication and democratised forms of diplomacy, marketing communication, digital governmental communication.

Dr Raluca Moise, City, University of London, UK
Dr. Raluca Moise is Senior Lecturer in Communications at School of Communication & Creativity, City University of London. Her past research in public relations has focused on areas such as new technologies, reputation (individual, organizational; online and classic media); public opinion and public interest. Most recent research explores sustainability in strategic communications: in its occupational field, with a focus on freelancers; in its communication practices, with an emphasis on equity, diversity and inclusivity. Raluca is a member of EUPRERA and an active network member in ‘Women in PR’ and ‘Education in PR’. Prior to joining City, she worked as lecturer at University of the Arts of London and University of Bucharest, also having worked as a practitioner in public relations, advertising and digital publishing.

Dr Nicholas Eng, University of Georgia, US
Dr Nicholas Eng  is Assistant Professor in the department of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Georgia, where he teaches PR Foundations and PR Ethics, Diversity, and Cross-cultural Leadership. His research investigates the interplay between message features and audience factors in shaping psychological and behavioral responses to messages about health and the environment. His research agenda also includes advancing research around corporate social responsibility and corporate social advocacy.

Dr Michal Chmiel, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Michal Chmiel (Ph.D., SFHEA, MCIPR) is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Psychology. He has been involved in Public Relations UG and PG education for 15 years. Formerly BA (Hons) Public Relations Course Leader at London College of Communication (UAL), he is now BSc (Hons) Programme Director for Environment and Social Change at Royal Holloway, University of London. Michal’s research interests focus on the role of the impact of Brand PR on the society, fake news, and PR education.

Dr Maria Joao Cunha, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Maria João Cunha has a PhD in Communication Sciences, specialized in Sociology of Communication. She is an Associate Professor at Institute of Social and Political Sciences, in the University of Lisbon, Portugal. She is a co-founding member and integrated researcher of the Interdisciplinary Centre of Gender Studies (CIEG/ISCSP-ULisboa), also currently acting as subdirector. She is a member of EUPRERA, in Women in PR network. She develops research in gender studies, with particular interest in women’s role in communication industries, media representations of women and vulnerable groups, gender violence and body image.

Moderator

Dr Martina Topic, University of Alabama, US
Dr Martina Topić is an associate professor in PR leadership at the University of Alabama, College of Communication and Information Sciences, Department of Advertising and PR, USA. She is editor-in-chief of Corporate Communications and Northern Lights journals and editor-in-chief of the book series ‘Women, Economics and Labour Relations’. She is an author of Workplace Culture in Mass Communication Industries (Routledge, 2023) and CSR and Environmental Affairs in the British Press (Routledge, 2021). She is a member of the American Sociological Association, British Sociological Association, and EUPRERA.

Duration

1 hour

 

8 December 2023
#EUPRERApeople – Interview with Angeles Moreno
Welcome back to

Interview with Angeles Moreno
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid

 

 

Ángeles Moreno is Professor of Corporate Communication and Public Relations Management at University Rey Juan Carlos en Madrid (Spain) and scholar at the high-performance Group of Advanced Studies on Communication (GEAC) of the University Rey Juan Carlos, with extended experience on international projects. The leadership she represents as a researcher is proved in her work in relevant transnational studies. Her research has been awarded by PRSA, ICA, EUPRERA and AIRP.
She is highly regarded as an author with huge productivity of 268 publications: 64 articles in indexed journals (leading or solitary 46% 40% Q1/Q2), 27 monographs, 31 reports, 17 book chapters. 5178 citations (GS). H-index: 37 and 10-index: 72.
She has hold managerial roles at university and board roles in academic associations of the field as European Public Relations Research and Education Association or International Relations Coordinator of the Association of Researchers of Public Relations; in her performance as a member of editorial and review committees for the main journals (eg. PR Journal, International Journal of Strategic Communication, Public Relations Review, Corporate Communication, Journal of Communication Management, International Journal of Public Relations, Professional of the Information, etc.) and congresses of the field (International Communication Association, EUPRERA, AIRP). She is an evaluator for national and international research bodies (eg. MINECO, AICO, EAI, ANEP, DEVA, Research Council KU Leuven) and for prestigious editorials.

Prof. Moreno, you are the first academic woman specialized in Public Relations and Strategic Communication to obtain the highest academic rank in Spain. Considering your interest in the issue of gender in the profession and the extensive research you are doing on this topic, how would you judge the role of women in PR academia nowadays?

Women still experience multiple forms of discrimination, inequalities and barriers in public relations (PR) and strategic communication, in both the industry and academia. We were pioneers in gender studies in this field in Spain and this is what our empirical results state in relation to our country, Europe and Latin America, coinciding with other research through the world. Over the years, we have been applying the newest methods of statistical analysis to data from the industry in various countries and our outcomes support the thesis of Claudia Goldin, the winner of the 2023 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences: women’s careers are deeply affected by structural social inequalities in their personal lives. This is what we refer to as the theory of integrated gendered work evaluation (IGWE) in our publication in the Journal of Public Relations Research (Moreno et al., 2022).

But this does not mean that enemies are only “at the (house) gates” (Moreno et al., 2021): strong structural and cultural barriers in the workplace persist as well, as shown by our last insights from the EUPRERA’s Women in PR project (Moreno et al., 2023). There is a high “cost of leadership”, and I personally experienced the same feeling that was expressed by our interviewees in the industry: although you understand this, you should not be a role model to younger colleagues. You can only hope they do not have to prove as much as your generation had to. This is not a surprising coincidence, because data from the academic and professional field have identified similar patterns of inequalities.

Moreover, we do not have consistent results in Europe about what has been called “intersectionality” (a term I do not like). We do not talk deeply about the interactions between gender, ethnicity or class, for instance, in the academic field in Europe. However, we were able to see some of these issues emerging in the focus groups of the Academic PR project (https://academicaspr.com) or at the discussion tables about the most recent book by Aldoory and Toth (2021). The dominant international academic culture in PR and strategic communication is masculine and WASP, and this has simply been taken for granted.  I would say that today the crux of the matter are not just the polarized deniers and the soloists that make things openly difficult for their female colleagues –those behaviors are now typified– but the subtle cultural corsets that the chorus –all the male (and female) colleagues that play deaf and blind because “the gay is nice to ME”– supports.

You are director of the Strategic Health Communication Network of EUPRERA, which brings together 31 researchers from 16 countries and global funding of more than 2 million euros. This sounds like a research field with a growing importance in communication worldwide. What are the emerging trends? 

The Strategic Health Communication (SHC) Network emerged from the Com-Covid project. The immediate response of EUPRERA’s scholars to analyse the role of strategic communication during the health emergency and crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic attracted a significative number of researchers all over the world. That initial project was timely and has had a relevant impact in terms of academic and social outputs.

Members of the network have also been very successful in attracting funds to diverse national projects. Some of them are still researching topics related to the pandemic, while others have expanded their research to diverse approaches in strategic health communication. The SHC Network has a large number of outputs including 19 journal papers, 10 book chapters, 12 academic presentations, two special panels and two workshops.

The Covid-19 pandemic generated increasing global interest in health communication and particularly in strategic communication applied to the field of health, including the institutions as well as the crises, emergencies and risks involved. Our bibliometric studies clearly confirm this trend. Yet, two critical unresolved epistemological questions emerge: can we talk about strategic health communication as a separate field from health communication, and is the discipline of strategic communication mature enough to allow such specializations?

What is the role of PR and strategic communication’ research for the challenges of our world?

Strategic communication has a growing role in society, in my view, that also entails a huge responsibility regarding ethical concerns. I am very interested indeed in the transference of PR and strategic communication of scientific knowledge to society. This is probably now my favourite career goal today and I am working on it in two areas: within the profession and outside of the field.

I have already been working intensely on this subject for a long time, through its transmission to the PR and strategic communication profession with the European Communication Monitor and the Latin American Communication Monitor, as well as the State of Communication project and other studies in Spain.

What the communication monitors have brought to the table in various continents is an unprecedented set of longitudinal empirical data with three distinctive features: the quantity and robustness of the data, international cooperation, and knowledge transfer. With the Global Communication Monitor, we have developed unprecedented cooperative research with the involvement of approximately 60 research institutions as well as a network of national and international professional associations supporting the analyses. This has had an impact on the recognition of PR and strategic communication in different regions. The European chapter alone has delivered 60 presentations to practitioners and published 32 articles in professional magazines, with more than 31,200 views of the results and 32,600 views of the videos.

To give an example, in Latin America alone, this study is the most the most representative one in the region, as has been acknowledged in the Public Relations Review journal (Moreno et al., 2023; Thelen, 2021), and it is also the most referenced empirical source in Ibero-American conferences.

I am currently excited about the next phase of the European Communication Monitor. This will involve new approaches and is a challenge that will require fresh energy to continue producing a solid and useful forecast of the trends in practices.

On the other hand, I am also now committed to enhancing the recognition of the role of communication in other scientific and professional fields. At the Group of Advanced Studies in Communication, we are now cooperating with consortiums from other scientific disciplines – such as health or engineering – to support and facilitate the transference of scientific knowledge to solve social challenges.

This is the case for the Strategic Communication for Skin Cancer Prevention through Sun Photo-exposure, a project which I lead. The Comunicancer project (https://strategichealthcommunication.com), in which five universities and hospitals are participating, entails a high degree of innovation, interdisciplinarity and transference. This project is linked to United Nations Sustainability Development Goal 3. Skin cancer could be the next epidemic, as it is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world, with more than 1.5 million estimated new cases diagnosed in 2020. The relevance of this topic for social health means that the results of this project must be disseminated beyond the scientific community. Thus, the main objective of this project is the practical transference of knowledge to improve the communication of prevention methods that are disseminated by the entities that are currently tasked with this responsibility. In Spain, these entities are part of the project network and will be the direct beneficiaries of the results. In the process, some have already requested our advice to enhance their communications through starting or remodelling their communication departments. In this way, we are proving and highlighting the role of strategic communication in other fields. The mediatization, digitalization and automatization of our societies has placed communication at the centre of every human and organizational activity. Managing it strategically is essential to be sustainable and to survive in this changing world.

References
Moreno, Á., Argüello-González, C. E., Zurro-Antón, N., & Athaydes, A. (2023). The state of public relations research addressing Latin America: Analysis of published articles in the region’s official languages between 1980 and 2020. Public Relations Review, 49(5), 102383.
Moreno, Á., Fuentes-Lara, C. & Tench, R. (2022). A theory of integrated gendered work evaluation (IGWE): A gender analysis of the unequal race for leadership through work evaluation of satisfaction and stress in Europe. Journal of Public Relations Research, 33(3), 185-203. https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726x.2021.2010557
Aldoory, L., & Toth, E. L. (2021). The future of feminism in public relations and strategic communication: A socio-ecological model of influences. Rowman & Littlefield.
Zeler, I., Fuentes-Lara, C. & Moreno, Á. (2022). Female leadership in Communication management in Spain: making a difference in a sexist culture. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 27(5), 74-92. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-04-2022-0047
Moreno, Á., Khalil, N. & Tench, R. (2021) Enemy at the (house) gates: permanence of gender discrimination in public relations career promotion in Latin America. Communication & Society, 34 (3), 169-183. https://doi.org/10.15581/003.34.3.169-183
Stay tuned
In the coming weeks we’ll issue new chapters of #EUPRERApeople! Be sure to receive them in your mailbox:

13 July 2023
AcadémicasPR – Women studying women in PR

AcadémicasPR (https://academicaspr.com) is an open, collaborative and supportive network developed by women who identified that the academic role of women working in PR was not a subject of scientific study in the field of communication/PR.  The network started in Spain with Isabel Ruiz-Mora, Ileana Zeler and Andrea Oliveira. It quickly spread to other countries, adding women leaders such as Gisela Goncalves in Portugal, Carolina Carbone in Argentina and Andreia Athaydes in Brazil.

This network aims to study and disseminate the work and research of and on women academics in public relations. Besides, it seeks to identify and make visible women scholars in public relations, to promote the generation of scientific knowledge on the topic, and to foster synergies between women researchers and academics in public relations, which contribute to strengthening their presence and leadership in the academic field.

Following our trajectories and research activity, we have observed a lack of adequate representation of Public Relations in the academic context of gender studies. Reviewing  the literature on women in PR, we have detected that scientific research on this topic has increased in recent years (Moreno et al., 2021; Topic et al., 2019). Although the research was originated in the United States (Topić et al., 2019), studies in the field have expanded to different geographical contexts, such as Europe (1) and Latin America (2). However, in Spain, there are still few studies on the role of women researchers in the field of communication (Izquierdo et al., 2021; Segado et al., 2021); and in the specific case of PR, the study of women has focused mainly on a professional perspective (Moreno et al., 2018).

Given this situation, we have seen the need to broaden our knowledge of the critical gender perspective in the academic field of PR in Spain, as well as in other countries/regions. In addition, we aim to identify the influence of women in developing and consolidating the scientific knowledge of public relations.

Thus, through the AcadémicasPR network, in the first stage, we intend to get to know the environments close to the academic activity previously developed by the participants (Europe, Latin America and North America). And in the second phase, we aspire to generate nodes of encounter and exchanges with the realities of female academics in Africa, Asia and Oceania.

The group of women who are part of the network is actively working in Spain, Portugal, Brazil and Argentina by participating in conferences and meetings, designing new projects and creating synergies with other networks, such as the EUPRERA network “Women in PR”. Our initial studies address the leadership of women academics in Spain, the role of women in PR through a critical analysis of Spanish and the glass ceiling and public relations in Argentina.

We hope that AcadémicasPR will become a space for meeting, exchange and reflection and a path for all academic women working in public relations. Join us!

The staff of AcadémicasPR

 

References
(1) E.g., UK (Topić, 2021; Yeomans, 2019), Georgia (Kaladze et al., 2020), Greece (Triantafillidou & Yannas, 2021), Croatia (Polić & Holy, 2021), Spain (Moreno et al., 2018), Russia (Erzikova & Berger, 2016).
(2)E.g., Costa Rica (Khalil Tolosa et al., 2018), Brazil (Molleda & Ferguson, 2004), Argentina (Carbone & Canella Tsuji, 2020).

15 May 2023
New book: Women and Leadership in Public Relations

Towards a New Understanding of Masculine Habitus and Women and Leadership in Public Relations
Edited By Martina Topić
Routledge

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 influence of the socialisation process on leadership styles, the difference between feminine and masculine leadership styles, and the impact of leadership style on career opportunities for women. The book features case studies exploring leadership in PR around the world in an attempt to answer a central research question: is there a masculine habitus in the PR industry despite the rise of women in PR? The authors of each chapter conducted original research on women working in PR within their own country and provide original insights into the position of women in a feminised industry, as well as proposing new and original theoretical frameworks for future research.

Written for scholars, researchers and students of PR and communication, this book will also be of interest to those studying gender studies, leadership and organisational analysis, and sociology.

 

The editor
Martina Topić is a Reader at Leeds Beckett University, UK.  She currently leads the EUPRERA research network on women in public relations  and she is a research lead for the #WECAN project (Women Empowered through Coaching and Networking), funded by the European Social Fund and Department of Work and Pensions. Among others, Martina is the author of the book “Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Affairs in the British Press: An Ecofeminist Critique of Neoliberalism” (Routledge, 2021).

More about the book

 

27 February 2023
#EUPRERAtalks: webinar on EQ for Strategic Communication

A new instalment of the webinar series #EUPRERAtalks is forthcoming in March!

EQ for Strategic Communication and Women in Leadership
Date: March 2, 2023, Thursday
Time: 6:00 pm CET
What to expect from the webinar

This webinar looks at emotional intelligence within strategic communications industries with a focus on women’s leadership styles. The webinar will discuss how EQ generally supports strategic communications and leadership, whether any gender-specific skills impact communication and leadership, and women’s leadership styles within mass communications industries. The speakers aim to provide some practical recommendations for practitioners and open some questions to inform further research.

Speakers

 

Martina Topic, Leeds Beckett University
Martina Topic is a behavioural sociologist and a mass communications scholar. She leads the EUPRERA network on Women in PR and she edited a book on women and leadership in public relations (Routledge, 2022).

Gabrielle Round, Leeds Beckett University
Gabrielle Round is a PhD student studying succession planning and women within small and medium-sized enterprises. She also teaches marketing and prior to joining academia, she worked in events and project management.

Ilaria Boffa, Six Seconds Europe
Ilaria Boffa, EQ Education & Community Manager for Six Seconds in Europe, co-designs and delivers EQ programmes and actions to grow individuals and teams’ professional expertise as well as support EQ network leaders across Europe. She is SEL Specialist and EQ Facilitator.

 

Duration

1 hour

23 January 2023
Call for Chapters on Gender and Freelancing in Comms Industries

This edited book is intended for the Women, Economics and the Labour Relations series, published by Emerald (editor-in-chief: Dr Martina Topić). The book will provide a much-needed exploration of the intersection of gender and freelance work in the communication industries (public relations, advertising, marketing, corporate comms, and digital communication), with a special focus on national issues and comparative international research.

The exploration of the experiences, practices, and discourses related to communication freelancers from a gender perspective would contribute to the closing of the current research and knowledge gaps, often generated by the lack of individualisation of freelancers among communication professionals in research projects.

The editors Anca Anton (University of Bucharest, Romania) and Raluca Moise (University of the Arts London, UK) invite prospective authors to develop chapters addressing the several topics (see full call) through qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods approaches.

Interested contributors should send a 500-word structured abstract together with up to six keywords and a 100-word biography for each author by April 15, 2023.

For submission instructions and further details, please see the Call for Chapters

20 December 2022
In solidarity, forever! A New Initiative to support and celebrate Comms Women and Women’s Diversity

by Dr Martina Topić
Reader at Leeds Business School, Leeds Beckett University, UK

In this blog, Martina writes about a grassroots initiative, CommsWomen, which she started as a result of her research findings from the EUPRERA network on Women in PR. If you would like to contribute either with references to your work and/or a blog, contact martina@commswomen.uk

CommsWomen is an initiative stemming directly from the EUPRERA network on Women in PR (previously a project, 2018-2021) I have been leading since 2018. I have designed and led research into organisational masculinities in communications industries, starting with the British Academy project on Women in Advertising, and this questionnaire was then also used in our research in the network on women in PR. Research has so far been conducted in England, Spain, Croatia, Georgia, North America, the Czech Republic and Greece.

All findings show that women suffer from organisational masculinities and the fact they do not always fit into masculine, organisational meanings and practices. It seems, based on findings, that mainly women who can join in the masculine organisational culture and become ‘one of the boys’ and embrace what is commonly known as blokish behaviour succeed and progress to managerial roles. Other women lag behind and struggle to cope with career expectations and office cultures, the latter sometimes mirroring the 1930s when women first joined offices and were, regardless of their qualifications, reduced to personal assistants and asked to copy something, make coffees, etc. What is more, in public relations, there is an issue of the lack of recognition of public relations as a profession, often seen as fluffy and PR professionals as those who are supposed to make things look pretty, women called ‘comms girls’, etc. When women do succeed in managerial roles, many demonstrate what is arguably blokish behaviour, they do not often have support from other women who do not see them as role models because they report these women are tougher than men and sometimes they also act as Queen Bees or women who succeeded in a man’s world and then pulled the ladder for other women. The fact women are tougher than men can be expected when being a manager is traditionally associated with being tough, lacking emotion and empathy and just generally seeming to embrace what is commonly known as masculine behaviour. Therefore, women often face a catch-22; if they are tough, they are criticised but if they are not tough, or if they are seen as what is commonly understood as feminine, then they are not managerial material. Academia is not immune to issues either. Women told me in conferences that if one does women in comms research, this is not always recognised and does not support career progression with some women saying they have been discouraged to pursue this research.

I published widely on industry issues including a book on leadership and women in PR, EUPRERA reports (a literature review, England case study) and also articles and chapters (see here) and this has benefited my career, but I did not want to just use women for my career benefit as I was aware many have sacrificed their lunch breaks and free time to speak with me and help with my research. Therefore, I launched the CommsWomen initiative to promote and celebrate women in comms and comms women research and diversity. Women are too often told to change to succeed in their careers, whereas organisations and society need to change! What is more, research (including my own) shows that most women are socialised in a way that does not create skills such as competitiveness and self-promotion, which come naturally to most men, largely due to early socialisation and habitus in which we grow up that creates dispositions that do not always find a satisfactory place in the organisational world.

So, I decided to do it for women and to that end, I created reference lists on women in comms research conducted so far, so that other researchers can find it, feel encouraged to conduct further research and also demonstrate that this area of scholarship is well developed and deserves to be seen as a subset of communications scholarship. The reference list includes literature on women in PR, women in advertising and women in journalism (coming soon), the three mass communications industries I have been studying for years.  I also created a blog where women can write about their work, offer mentoring and tips and where I will also write and promote works by and about comms women to celebrate their achievements, promote them and advocate for women’s diversity because women are not a unique collective. They are very different and deserve to be recognised for all of their diversity. It is a genuine grassroots initiative, and anyone can be promoted and participate. Participation in this initiative is free and always will be. In solidarity, forever!

CommsWomen

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