Dr Sarah Bowman

Assistant Professor

School: 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
Public Relations and Communications, Bowman, S. 19 Aug 2025, The Public Relations Handbook, Routledge
Public Relations and Corporate Communications, Bowman, S., Walker, G. 19 Aug 2025, The Public Relations Handbook, Routledge
Public Relations, Politics and the Media, Roberts Bowman, S. 19 Aug 2025, The Public Relations Handbook, London, Routledge
Sensemaking and Persuasive Sensegiving: The Thank You North East regional Covid-19 campaign, the brief we never wanted!, Ellis, T., Bowman, S. 1 Jul 2025, In: Journal of Creative Communications
Sex, Sexuality, and Sexism: A Generational Comparison of Women’s Freelance Career Experiences in the UK Public Relations Industry, Bowman, S., Yaxley, H., Bridgen, E. 7 Oct 2025, Gender and Freelancing in the Communication Industries, Leeds, Emerald
The power of stigma: telling the story of the exclusion of Porn Pedallers Cycling Club from British Cycling, Bridgen, E., Bowman, S. 3 Apr 2025, In: Porn Studies
What is Public Relations?, Bowman, S., Walker, G. 19 Aug 2025, The Public Relations Handbook, Routledge
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

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Examination: The Institutionalisation Of Whistleblowing In The Scottish Health Service: An Interplay Between Organisations, Media And Political Influence 2024
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

PGR Supervision

Ke Xue The Development of Short Video User-Interactive Digital Media from UGC to PGC Start Date: 04/12/2023 End Date: 17/10/2025
Ke Xue From user to professionally generated content: strategic mediation of Chinese culture via short videos on DouYin National discourse, cultural diplomacy and participatory culture Start Date: 04/12/2023