#ZumaMustFall

The ZumaMustFall movement began a while ago when the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma was found guilty for a number of corruption scandals. It all started when South African citizens were enough of the president getting off with fraud and corruption. South Africans, having had enough, started a movement requesting the removal of Jacob Zuma from the presidential position.

Social medial has managed to make a local issue to be of international importance, through the use of hashtags. Social media, being very influential, managed to convince people of how bad a leader Zuma is. 

The Nkandla scandal was just a part of it. It has been proclaimed that the president was using taxpayers’ money for personal satisfaction, money that could have been used for beneficial purposes like educating unprivileged students rather than buying a private jet. In the past year and recently, through multiple incidents, the president has managed to convince the country of how corrupt he can be. These scandals lead to the great publicity of the issue. The scandals are also seen as the cause of all our problems, issues like the increment of university fees and the depreciation of our economy.  With the scandals proven to have happened, it made it difficult for Public Relations practitioners to manage the situation and to respond as positive as possible. With the amount of negative publicity for the president, this has made our nation lose its credibility.

From the amount of damage done by the scandals and the attention it received, rectifying such for a practitioner can be very challenging. Strategically, as a practitioner, hashtags should have been used to control the situation. One can introduce a movement where they strategically implement positive initiatives to rebuild the brand of our president Jacob Zuma. A movement like #LetMeExplain for instance. People may consider Mr President as being unworthy of the leadership position and that he should be removed with immediate effect, responding positively and proving the necessary information as a PR practitioner could make it possible for people to be considerate of all factors.

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#FeesMustFall

In a series of events that occurred towards the end of the year, late October 2015, where students protested against the increment of university fees. It all began when students from the University of the Witwatersrand, students that cannot afford, were against the increase in registration fees seeing that they could not afford it as it already was. The protests that occurred at Wits affected most universities across South Africa. Initially, it influenced students from other universities across the nation, from the University of Johannesburg; Tshwane University of Technology; the University of Cape Town and the University of Pretoria to name but a few, to question their management with regards to fees being increased.

The use of social media made it very simple for students to portray their message to the media and to the mass audience which in return led to celebrities and other well know people to support the students’ movement. Social media managed to make the movement trend within a few hours. Social platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook provided a foundation for the extreme publicity. Had it not been for students taking a stand against fees being increased, university management would not have suspended the increasing of fees. The power to stand made it possible for us to have a affordable education. 

The disadvantage to this immediate and haphazard occurrence of protests and the media coverage on the topic is that it does not allow for input from financial managers of the universities respectively or the department of Higher Education as a whole. The fast publicity provided by hashtags has also influenced, negatively, the reputation of public relations as it makes it difficult for the practitioner to respond or clarify as to what really influenced the decision making of the university. It becomes very challenging to manage a disaster that has already erupted. For future reference, being proactive will be of great use to Public Relations and the university as a whole. Proactivity controls the eruption of a situation and solves the problem, sometimes without it being made public.

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