Prof Lee Edwards

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Strategic Communications and Society. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes.

This course provides an advanced understanding of theoretical knowledge in the field of media and communication as it relates to strategic and its role, scope and activities in contemporary societies and in the context of globalisation and the digital age. Students will engage with a broad landscape of strategic communications theory as the foundation for their degree, from administrative organisational theories, to critical and reflexive analyses of the profession as a locus of power in society. They will analyse the context, practices and challenges for strategic communications, and consider the role it plays in the ways we construct and contest critical social issues, such as climate change, migration, technological change, and social and cultural inequalities.  Topics may include, but are not limited to: the role of strategic communications in organisational reputation and relationship management; professional structures and identities in the strategic communications industries; the social and cultural power of strategic communications and its discourses; technologies of strategic communications; strategic communications and inequalities; and the ethics of strategic communications

30 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

• Aiello, G. & Parry, K. 2019. Visual Communication. London: SAGE.
• L. Edwards, C. Bourne, J. Cabañes and G. Castro eds. (2025). The Sage Handbook of Promotional Culture and Society. London: Sage 2025
• E. Briant and V. Bakir eds. (2025). Routledge handbook of the influence industry. London: Routledge.
• R. Tench and S. Waddington (2024). Exploring public relations and management communication. London: Pearson Education.
• E. West and M. McAllister eds. (2023) The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture, 2nd edition. London: Routledge.
• M. Aronczyk (2022). A strategic nature: Public relations and the politics of American environmentalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
• D. Munshi and P. Kurian (2021). Public relations and sustainable citizenship: Representing the unrepresented. New York: Routledge 2021
• L. Edwards (2021). Organised lying and professional legitimacy: Public relations’ accountability in the disinformation debate. European Journal of Communication, 36(2): 168-182
• M. Crain (2021). Profit over privacy: How surveillance advertising conquered the internet. Michigan: University of Minnesota Press.

Oral examination (100%).