✅ Helping make sense of management and communication
Pearson will publish the sixth edition of Exploring Public Relations and Management Communication next year.
Exploring Public Relations and Management Communication has been recommisioned for a sixth edition to be published next year by Pearson. It’ll be the twentieth anniversary of the first edition.
Whatever your interest in public relations and management, you will always find a perspective in Exploring. I joined the project as an editor for the fifth edition alongside Ralph Tench, after Liz Yeomans, co-editor for the first four editions, stepped back.
Thanks Teelya Clayton for the meme-ories from the launch of the fifth edition of Exploring Public Relations and Management Communication in 2021
The book has grown in international reputation and reach with each edition. It's taken me on travels throughout Europe, Asia, India and the US.
It reflects the growing community of academic and practitioner contributors, as well as teachers and students who use the text to support research and learning. We broadened the management perspective for the last edition. It’s a continuing theme for the sixth edition, along with geopolitics and an international outlook.
In many ways this newsletter shares its purpose with the book.
We aim to publish management and public relations insight to equip professional communicators with the knowledge needed to navigate media, technology, politics and economic change.
We’re trusted by 4,000+ practitioners seeking clarity on issues such as artificial intelligence, diversity and societal polarisation from a management and communication perspective. We distill news, research and industry developments twice weekly into actionable briefings to help you enhance your work.
In this week's mid-week research briefing, we’ll be making sense of the impact of the four generations of practitioners in the workplace from the USC Annenberg study published last week. Next week, we plan to review a research paper on the state of play in AI for public relations.
Please consider becoming a paying subscriber to support our work if you haven’t already. It would be much appreciated.
Have a great week ahead.
Management
💼 TALKING TOUGH: Corporate leaders are shifting to tougher communication amid economic uncertainty, embracing “masculine energy” and “radical transparency” according to leaked internal meetings from Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Starbucks. Almost 40% plan to increase requirements for office attendance despite potential staff resignations, aligning with a broader trend towards strength-focused leadership expected under the Trump administration. Source: Axios.
🚨 SECURITY BREACH: President Trump’s national security team accidentally added a journalist to a Signal group chat where officials discussed a planned attack on Yemen's Houthi rebels. The incident highlights the importance of secure communication protocols and proper vetting procedures when discussing sensitive operations. Source: The Atlantic.
🎙️ ZOOM BIAS: According to Yale research, poor videoconferencing audio quality significantly lowers the perception of a speaker's intelligence and credibility. The "tinny speech" from cheap microphones creates potential discrimination risks in professional settings, as microphone quality likely correlates with socioeconomic status, affecting job interviews and assessments of professional credibility. Source: Yale.
💼 BOARDROOM PATHWAYS: The latest edition of the CIPR's Engage podcast explores how practitioners can successfully transition to board-level positions in a conversation between Ann-Marie Blake, Noha Al Afifi and myself. The discussion provides practical guidance on accessing director roles and managing leadership commitments at a senior level. It highlights the need for critical thinking and learning in governance and management. Source: CIPR.
💻 DIGITAL VISION: The Tony Blair Institute argues that prudent spending in the 2025 Spring Statement will do little to unlock growth. It champions integrating AI, data and digital identity into public administration, potentially saving £40 billion annually through technological modernisation whilst creating a new operating model for central and local government. Source: Tony Blair Institute.
Industry
🎙️ PR POD LAUNCH: The PR Network has launched a new podcast called "Just Curious..." It features high-profile stories about reputation management, with the debut episode exploring Olympian Dwain Chambers' journey following his 2001 doping scandal. The series aims to offer communications practitioners insights for managing organisational reputation challenges through real-world experiences. Source: Spotify.
📋 CIVIL SERVICE CUTS: Chancellor Rachel Reeves has confirmed a 15% reduction in Civil Service running costs by 2030, with communications teams specifically targeted for cutbacks. The £2bn annual savings will affect "back office" roles while government claims front-line services will be protected. Approximately 10,000 civil service jobs are expected to go. Source: BBC.
🏴☠️ AI PIRACY: The Atlantic has done a significant public service in highlighting copyright infringement in training data through the search tool built on top of the Library Genesis dataset used to train Meta's AI model. It shows the growing tension between AI developers, content creators and publishers, with industry bodies such as the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society challenging “fair use” positions while advocating for proper compensation. Source: The Atlantic.
Best practice
🎙️ PODCAST REVOLUTION: Mano Brown's “Mano a Mano” podcast, highlighted in a recent research report, redefines media power dynamics by elevating marginalised voices through confessional journalism. Practitioners can learn from its stakeholder alignment, authentic communication and reclaiming of a narrative. Brown's community-centred approach challenges traditional media norms through emotional storytelling. Source: Wadds Inc.
🌐 ACCESSIBILITY MATTERS: The Government Communication Service (GCS) publishes comprehensive resources for making digital content accessible, addressing issues from colour contrast and font size to inclusive language and alt-text descriptions. Practitioners should prioritise web accessibility standards to ensure all users can equally perceive, understand and interact with content. Source: GCS.
The PR Network is a Wadds Inc. client.
Thanks to Liz Halliday, Dan Slee, Ben Verinder, Alex Waddington and Sarah Waddington CBE and everyone who shares and debates the stories in the newsletter via our Facebook and LinkedIn communities.