Strategic Issue Management

Midterm Exam Assignment

Rudi Sukandar, Ph.D
Due Date: November 7, 2015
Format: Soft copy

Assignment 1
Your tasks
For your assignment you are to prepare two documents: (A) your assignment paper, and (B) a log
book. Your tutor will advise you on a suitable format for the log book. Send to : rudi.s@lspr.edu

Part A: Environmental Scanning Report

Word limit: 2,500 words (not including references or appendices)
One of the most important roles in the public relations profession is to monitor what is emerging in
the organisations operating environment in order to identify, analyse and prioritise potential public
issues that could have the potential to make a significant impact on the organisation.
The first step in issues management is to scan the surrounding environment for early signs of
problems or concerns that may develop into issues. Issue factors might be becoming apparent in
broad areas such as politics, the natural environment, social changes in society, economic trends,
technological innovation, or changes in law and justice.
Specific examples might be changes in government policy and regulations affecting certain
industries, a change of government itself (presidential and other elections), the activities of lobby
groups or activists, increased competition within an industry, changes in the natural environment
evident in climate change, or news media coverage of a particular matter. Some internal issues
might have emerged publicly, such as health and safety matters or large-scale employee
retrenchments, etc.
Some issues might become suddenly apparent or may have been growing over the medium term (6
months) to longer term (1-2 years) and not noticed. These issues may emerge at the local, national
or international level.
Task:
1. Identify an issue that is receiving media and/or public attention - the issue can be taken from
any country. However, it must be current
2. Start your assignment paper by naming the major public issue, stating why you believe it is
an issue rather than a problem or crisis. Write up to 500 words maximum overall for this
part of the task.
3. Identify an organisation (stakeholder) that has been directly or indirectly affected by the
major public issue. The organisation can be from the private sector or the public sector. It
could be a company, government department or agency, not-for-profit organisation (NGO),
a school, hospital or a government-owned trading corporation, etc. Media coverage does
not need to be directly about the organisation. For instance, environmental pollution or a
health issue could be considered to affect the whole community and also a specific
stakeholder organisation e.g. flooding, traffic congestion, water quality, cost of living, etc.
Remember the same problem (such as a volcano or ongoing corruption) could be a
problem to one organisation, a crisis to another and an issue to still another.

4. Start a new page with the heading of About *name of organisation+ in your assignment
paper. In your own words (dont plagiarise), write a general summary (up to a maximum 500
words) about the organisation and its operations. This should be similar to an About
section on a website home page. Write concisely about significant details only. For instance,
there is no reason to list all the directors or senior managers or give the history of the
organisation (unless that information is particularly relevant).
5. Start a new page with the heading Summary of the issue. Imagine you are the public
relations manager of your selected organisation. Write a 1500 word summary for the
management committee, containing:
a. Define the issue. What really is the core of the issue? Why did the issue develop as a
challenge for the organisation? How could it impact on the organisation? What is
the worst case scenario?
b. List and very briefly describe the main stakeholders (people, groups or organisations
who can affect or be affected by the issue), and why you consider they are
stakeholders.
c. Explain the stage in which the issue life cycle is in.
d. Draw a simple graph of the issue life cycle to date, showing any changes in the level
of public concern/attention over time. You can draw this by hand or use your
computer. You can refer to the class material from week 3 for this.
e. Any other relevant applicable information. Much of the content in this section will
depend on your particular issue.
6. Your task is to present a business case to your manager as to why she or he should be aware
of the issue and why your organisation should implement your suggestions to deal with the
issue so that it does not become a crisis.
7. As this assignment is written to achieve a business outcome, you must reference in the
business case using foot note-style referencing.

Part B: Issues Tracking

Word limit: At least 10 pages
Monitor the media (print, blogs, and online sources) follow the issue. Create an A4 log book to build
a chronological record of the coverage of the broad public issue that you have found in the news
media, online and/or in social media up to the end of week 5. This can include information you have
obtained on Google. Each entry should start on a new page and show information such as:
- Date of the coverage (and time, if relevant)
- Source details (physical location of source; type of media, e.g. newspaper, news
website, television or radio news, etc.)
- Extent of coverage (number of words or duration of coverage if it was on TV or radio
news)
- Size of audience or readership of that news source
- Location of item within the news coverage, e.g. prominent or not. Give page number
(for newspaper) or description of the location of the news, e.g. on home page of news
website, in the first half of television news program.
- Tone of coverage (eg generally positive, neutral or negative)
- Any visual images (only for newspapers and news websites)
- Concise summary of one paragraph about the content of the item
- Comment on implications of the item and its context in that particular news segment or
page, if relevant.

Your log book should contain at least ten media pieces from at least five different media sources
include traditional and online (including social media).