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The purpose of this paper is to provide rich, qualitative insights around internal communication in strategic communication agencies, addressing the evolutions in expectations and best practices for agency leadership through COVID-19.

Qualitative interview study with 18 US-based leaders of public relations and advertising agencies to examine their experiences of leading and managing strategic communication teams during COVID-19.

Synthesized findings around changes in leadership values and important facets of ongoing internal crisis communication led to the development of the following five categories—Improvisation and Flexibility, Transparency and Trust, Ownership and Embodiment, Care and Empathy, Relationships and Resilience.

Using a high-value sample, the study is the first (to the best of the authors' knowledge) to focus on the crucial context of agencies and internal communication around COVID-19; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); and other pandemic-era challenges. It provides theoretical implications around ongoing, internal crisis communication and practical implications for agency leaders in crisis.

This study is concerned with the dynamics of the internal communications at Netflix following the release of The Closer and the public debate that followed, testing Netflix's long-standing reputation for promoting diverse content and supporting a progressive organizational culture.

Using the circuit of culture (CoC) as a theoretical framework, this study applies a case study approach to analyze internal communication and strategic public relations in addressing this crisis.

This study's findings illustrate that by failing to interpret two of the five moments of the CoC, production and identity, Netflix negated the very values that constitute its brand. These findings have implications for how public relations' long-standing focus on two-way symmetrical communication is problematic, especially in the workplace.

The findings situate how the exertion of power within an organization, particularly in moments of identity and production, problematize the role of two-way symmetrical communication within an organization in crisis.