Dr Sarah Bowman

Assistant Professor

Department: Northumbria School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries

Sarah has over 25 years working in organisational communications in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors primarily in London. She has held a variety of senior positions in the UK and in Europe before entering academia where she obtained her PhD in corporate communications. Her formative academic career was at the University of the Arts, London before moving to Northumbria in 2017. Sarah is rhizomatic and ecological in her research interests and is drawn to overlapping and interconnected themes, in particular how stakeholders, organisations, professions and communities navigate change. She uses a range of conceptual frameworks to explore phenomena from sense-making and sense-giving, to various sociological theories, as well as drawing on and in rhetorical and visual communications.

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Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Sarah has over 25 years working in organisational communications in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Her interests focus on how to bring about, understand, manage, and implement change. Areas of expertise include:

organisational communications drawing on a range of sociological theories from the work of Bourdieu, Habermas, Bauman, Goffman, Foucault and more recently a range of feminist theories (in particular, radical feminism)
building belonging, community, and identification both inside and outside organisations drawing on the theoretical lens of sense-making and sense-giving
exploring the sociology and evolution of the professions in an age of liquid modernity, with a specific interest in 'discourse work' such as public relations, public affairs, advocacy, and activism and is becoming increasingly drawn to metamodernism to reflect the reality of working in complexity
radical pedagogy to support graduates and those in the professions to build the sensibilities to navigate the precarity and liminality prevalent in late modernity
the role of the media in shaping and reflecting cultural norms

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Developing an original Café Delphi historical method to research women’s individual and collective experiences of sex, sexuality, and sexism in PR in the 1990s, Bowman, S., Yaxley, H. 2 Jan 2024, In: Corporate Communications
Metamodern sensibilities: Toward a pedagogical framework for a wicked world, Bowman, S., Salter, J., Stephenson, C., Humble, D. 3 Jul 2024, In: Teaching in Higher Education
PR Power in the 1990s: Sex, sexuality, and sexism – a UK perspective, Bowman, S., Yaxley, H. 25 Mar 2024, Women’s Work in Public Relations, Bingley, Emerald
Recognising a signature pedagogy for Public Relations teaching and learning in the last twenty years: The major driver for change in Public Relations education has been the constant struggle to prove our value, Kinnear, S., Bowman, S. 2 Jan 2024, In: Corporate Communications
Sensemaking and Persuasive Sensegiving: The Thank You North East regional Covid-19 campaign, the brief we never wanted!, Ellis, T., Bowman, S. 21 Aug 2024, In: Journal of Creative Communications
The power of stigma: telling the story of the exclusion of Porn Pedallers Cycling Club from British Cycling, Bridgen, E., Bowman, S. 30 Aug 2024, In: Porn Studies
Graduate Sensibilities: a Metamodern Pedagogical Framework for a Wicked World, Bowman, S., Stephenson, C., Humble, D. 27 Jun 2023, The North East Universities Consortium Three Rivers Conference
The future of clinical trials - is it virtual?, Ng, C., Bowman, S., Ling, J., Bagshaw, R., Birt, A., Yiannakou, Y. 1 Dec 2023, In: British Medical Bulletin
Developing a Café Delphi historical method to study female experiences of sex, sexuality, and sexism in PR in the 1990s., Bowman, S., Yaxley, H. 7 Jul 2022, 12th International History of PR Conference
Women and Leadership in Public Relations and Communication Management: Developing a Rhizomatic Typology of Knowledge and Professional Development as an Ecological Radical Feminine Perspective, Bowman, S., Yaxley, H. 5 Aug 2022, Towards a New Understanding of Masculine Habitus and Women and Leadership in Public Relations, London, Taylor & Francis

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Publication Peer-review: Journal of Communication (Journal) 2023
Publication Peer-review: Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education (Journal) 2022
Publication Peer-review: Corporate Communications (Journal) 2021
Membership of committee: Chartered Institute of Public Relations (External organisation) 2020
Membership of committee: Chartered Institute of Public Relations (External organisation) 2020
Other: North East Sales and Marketing Academy 2020
Other: Examiner, PR Academy 2020
Consultancy: Project: Roll out of CDRC_Precision for the Academic Health Science Network 2019
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: 19th Annual Congress of the European Public Relations Research Association (EUPRERA) 2017
Membership of committee: Euprera Public Affairs Network (External organisation) 2017