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Dr Sarah Bowman

Assistant Professor

Department: Arts

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.

Sarah Bowman

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

  • Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
  • PR Power in the 1990s: Sex, sexuality, and sexism – a UK perspective, Bowman, S., Yaxley, H. 2023, Women’s Work in PR, Emerald
  • 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
  • Metamodern sensibilities: Toward a pedagogical framework for a wicked world, Bowman, S., Salter, J., Stephenson, C., Humble, D. 9 Dec 2022, In: Teaching in Higher Education
  • 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
  • Internal crisis communication and the social construction of emotion: university leaders' sensegiving discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic, Yeomans, L., Bowman, S. 20 Jul 2021, In: Journal of Communication Management
  • Twenty years of teaching Public Relations - Exploring a signature pedagogy for the field, Kinnear, S., Bowman, S. 24 Jun 2021, 11th International History of PR Conference, University of Boston
  • Using a meta-modernist and ecological lens to underpin professionalism: Establishing communications as a reflective and sustainable practice , Bowman, S., Yaxley, H. 1 Jun 2021, A post-conference of the 2021 Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association
  • Developing a liminality competency for promotional work: Using process philosophy to understand the traits necessary in an age of liquid professionalism , Bowman, S. 2020, COMPLEXITY, HYBRIDITY, LIMINALITY: CHALLENGES OF RESEARCHING CONTEMPORARY PROMOTIONAL CULTURES
  • Public relations and communications, Roberts-Bowman, S. 1 Jan 2020, The Public Relations Handbook, Taylor & Francis
  • Public Relations and Communications, Bowman, S. 27 Oct 2020, The Public Relations Handbook, London, Taylor & Francis

  • Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
  • 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
  • Organising a conference, workshop, ...: Global Tasks for PR: The role of defence, diplomacy and development, London College of Communiation 2016
  • Publication Peer-review: EUPRERA (Event) 2016

Gloria Walker Determining best practices in development communication: efficiency or effectiveness? An investigation into NGO communications practices in developing economies and their impact on participants in development projects Start Date: 01/03/2022

  • Philosophy PhD August 04 2017
  • Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy SFHEA 2021


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