Treads awkwardly around five plugs (7)
I believe the answer is:
adverts
'plugs' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both related to communication as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'treads awkwardly around five' is the wordplay.
'awkwardly' is an anagram indicator.
'around' is an insertion indicator.
'five' becomes 'V' (Roman numeral).
'treads' with letters rearranged gives 'aderts'.
'aderts' placed around 'v' is 'ADVERTS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for adverts that I've seen before include "Refers or alludes to" , "Commercials" , "Makes reference" .)