The case study research paper may cover any issue within the public relations field, including the following:

Crisis communications

Government Relations

Customer relations

Employee relations

Investor relations

Reputation management $($organizational$,$ not individual$)$

Product Launch

Corporate social responsibility, rebranding, repositioning or change management

Political campaign

The campaign can be a rapid or a slowbuilding endeavor, but must be complex and must include social media elements.Situation Analysis: Analyze the situation $($also called environmental scanning$).$ In this step, the practitioner explores the industry or field, the organization itself, the products or services offered by the organization, the users of those products or services, and the competition.

Practitioners review legal, social, political, and economic trends. They explore every aspect of operation and review the mission and history of the organization, particularly the practices in public relations and marketing communications.

Secondary and Primary Research: To gain a broad perspective of the situation, practitioners engage in both secondary and primary research. Secondary data collection involves existing materials, such as reports, collateral, and information found in databases. Primary data collection involves conducting original research, such as surveys and focus groups $($utilizing survey technology such as Survey Monkey$).$ Consider interviewing industry experts, and contacting them via Linkedln, Facebook, and Twitter. Secondary research is conducted first. If more information is needed, primary research is gathered.

For this assignment, you are not expected to conduct primary data collection$/$original research. However, if you are interested in doing so$,$ you may consider attempting to interview company representatives and industry experts. Instead of conducting primary research, you will primarily focus on secondary research.

Problems and Opportunities: After analyzing the situation, the practitioner can identify problems that can be solved by public relations. Focus on key problems and make sure they are not symptoms of a bigger problem. Each problem should be able to be turned into an opportunity. In some rarer cases, the practitioner may need to focus on strengths or new developments instead because an opportunity may not be visible. Opportunities are not written as objectives. Objectives can be used, but the practitioner will need to elaborate on the $8$ proposed outcomes. All problems have been addressed in the situation analysis.