Since the early 1990s, Ma Zhiqiang has been mainly engaged in the research of applied communication and public relations, mainly focusing on public relations and regional image communication. The study of regional image communication is an important direction in the study of applied communication, which constitutes the main research framework of applied communication together with applied disciplines such as media communication, network communication, media operation and management, and government image research. The study of regional image communication is an interdisciplinary subject of communication, public relations, public management and economics, which has practical application value.

Ma Zhiqiang has been engaged in the research of public relations theory and public relations education for a long time, and has his own experience on the professional planning, professional characteristics, curriculum setting, personnel training, classroom teaching and practical teaching of public relations undergraduate. In view of the undergraduate teaching of public relations, Ma Zhiqiang has successively established five education projects and teaching reform projects, and applied these projects to teaching in time.