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The purpose of this paper is to explore the pressures to publish facing European public relations (PR) and communication management scholars across career stages.

The Delphi method was used with PR and communication management scholars at associate professor level or higher across Europe. An online survey was then shared with the wider academic community to gather insights from scholars at different career stages.

The suitability and status of the journal and the language of the outputs are considered. Academics are caught between the rock of publishing inside the field to support its development and the hard place of being required to publish in high-ranking journals for funding and promotion. Scholars are evaluated regularly, with journal articles being the main unit of assessment. Academics, regardless of career stage, feel under pressure to publish.

The wider survey enabled publishing insights to be gathered from academics across the career spectrum, but it was completed by a small sample. Nevertheless, similar concerns emerged from both methods of data gathering, suggesting a clear agenda for discussion and further research.

PR and communications management is an academic discipline without an accepted list of high-impact journals. This study provides an annotated journal list to aid institutional evaluations, aid scholarly journal publishing decisions and support early career researchers navigating the publishing process.

This adds to the somewhat limited discussion regarding how academics in PR and communication management decide where to publish and provides a resource that can be used by scholars, institutions and funders.

The Internet has brought about change in the way that public relations is practised. Not only has it provided another channel of communication, but the communication dynamic itself has changed because of the Internet’s unique combination of characteristics. Much public relations practice is still posited on dated theories of the system of communication along the linear lines of sender, channel, receiver (with feedback). The public relations professional is there to transmit a message with the purpose of persuading publics to the point of view being promulgated. There have been suggestions that a new model of communication is required in order to explain the Internet medium. This paper re‐examines three of the older communication systems models to establish whether there are elements within them that can be helpful in explaining the dynamics of Internet‐based communication. The authors use the three models, in turn, to examine this medium by focusing on the message sender, the channel itself and the user of the Internet. The conclusion is that together they can throw valuable light on Internet‐based communication and that there are lessons to be drawn from these models that are useful for the contemporary public relations practitioner.

This paper describes a research project that involved an in‐depth investigation into freelancing in the public relations industry with data collected from both freelancers and their employers. The analysis of these data highlighted the complexity of issues for those working in and employing people in this sector of public relations practice. The research project produced data on themes relating to freelance practitioners’ status, skills and experience, but this paper aims to focus specifically on trends and issues for the future. The key findings under this theme are that the freelance sector has grown. A majority of clients claim an increased use of freelancers in the last year and this was linked to a “need for flexibility” and “new business development”. Also the majority of freelancers are happy and do not want to change their employment status and some respondents stated “nothing” would make them return to permanent employment. Freelance public relations appears to be meeting a trend since the early 1990s for companies to “downsize” and “outsource” workers and for employees to seek a work/lifestyle balance. Regarding patterns of work almost half of freelancers claimed to be more productive when freelancing with the key factors being that they have “fewer interruptions” and fewer “unnecessary meetings”. Of relevance to national institutes and debates about professionalisation and reputation, it was interesting that the majority of the sample were not members of a professional body. The research and its findings have implications for human resources managers employing public relations staff, public relations managers and directors who commission freelance practitioners and the freelancers themselves.

The purpose of this paper is to review public relations and related literature to examine attitudes to persuasion and propaganda as part of a long‐term project to produce an integrated ethical framework.

A critical approach to existing literature, examining assumptions and value judgments underpinning core texts and other writing. The limitations of systems, marketplace and relationship theory are briefly examined.

The dominance of systems theory and its reluctance to engage with persuasion has created a vacuum which is filled by critics, such as Stauber and Rampton. The common models of public relations – boundary spanner, advocate, relationship manager and propagandist – have limited discussion of persuasion and persuasion ethics, with the exception of the rhetorical version of advocacy which has produced considerable material of interest. However, rhetoric is rarely taught in the UK and the marketplace approach is more common. Social psychology has useful insights into persuasion and the Maletzke model is adapted to suggest future direction for an integrated ethical framework.

These are preliminary findings, based on literature, which will underpin the PhD started in July 2007. The application of the model is explored but has not yet been tested in practice.

If practitioners internalise particular versions of public relations and adopt ethical assumptions connected with each model, competing views of PR ethics will undermine an integrative approach. The adapted model proposed in this paper can be used either as a tool for analysing communication ethics or as a practical guide to professional behaviour.

Others (L'Etang, Piezska, Moloney, Weaver, Edgett) have covered some of these issues. This paper links ethical approaches with models of public relations and suggests the use of a communication model rarely referenced in PR literature.

In an era when all workers are experiencing ever increasing stress levels, it may be anticipated that the move from traditional employment to freelance working would have a positive impact on the degree of occupational stress reported. In a recent UK survey of 190 freelance consultants (women n = 133; men n = 57) in the public relations and communications industry this expectation was indeed found to be supported. Over half of respondents stated that they were definitely less stressed than when they were employed and almost all reported that they were as healthy or healthier. The findings show that the positive benefits of freelance working for PR/communications consultants are significantly greater for women, who not only experience more health benefits than men, but also report significantly more improvements in their personal relationships and are significantly more satisfied with life.

Women working in public relations (PR) in the 1990s developed the power of metamodern pragmatism to avoid being constrained in this decade of contradictions.

This was a time of promise for female empowerment and careers. The PR industry in Britain had quadrupled in size, yet increased feminisation and professionalisation did not resolve gender inequity. Indeed, alongside the existence of ‘old boys clubs’ and hedonistic macho agencies in the industry, the 1990s offered a lad's mag culture and an AbFab image of PR.

An original collaborative historical ‘Café Delphi’ method was developed using three themes (sex, sexuality and sexism) to explore women's careers and contributions in the expanding and increasingly powerful field of PR in the United Kingdom during the 1990s. It built on feminist critique of the industry and paradoxical portrayals of women resulting from significant changes in media, popular culture and a pluralistic marketplace.

Individual and collective experiences of women working in PR at the time reveal the power of attitudes to affect their ability to achieve equality and empowerment. Women navigated tensions between the benefits of accelerated pluralism and the patriarchal resistance in the workplace through performative choices and a deep sense of pragmatism.