#FeesMustFall

#FeesMustFall

LONG ROAD TO FREE EDUCATION

Long road to free education is about the struggle which student went through when they wanted free quality education. 

Fees must fall is the student led protest movement which started in October 2015, it was started by the University of Witwatersrand SRC, and spread to the university of Capetown and Rhodes University, until it then spread to other Universities in South Africa. Although I don't support the fact that the students were destroying the university properties and infringing the rights of other students, but I support the fees must fall protest because most poor people couldn't further their studies due to they couldn't afford university fee. It is said that everyone has the right to education but if you check not all of us have access to that education due to lack of money. The reason why it seemed like the is no solution to higher education is because students were looking for solutions in wrong places. Our problem in South Africa lies with the economic system which is capitalistic economic system, where we have unlimited needs with limited resources.

Advantages and disadvantages of  social media for Public Relations Practioners

The advantage of social media is that it increase brand awareness. Social media increase the recognition of the brand because you will be engaging with your target audience. Social media will make it possible for the #FeesMustFall campaign to engage with its target audience which are other students from different universities and increase its recognition in the country. Another social media advantage is that it inform and updates. Social Media informs and updates people on what is happening around the world. Social Media assisted the #FeesMustFall campaign to update and inform students on what other students are doing in other university so that they may be in the same mind. The disadvantage of Social media is that it can easily ruin a person's reputation by creating false stories and spreading across social media. In fees must fall protest a student's reputation can be ruined because one of the students who are protesting might go viral while doing what is prohibited like burning university properties and that will create a bad reputation for that student because your future employers might see you you and that can create a less chance of that person to get a job. Another disadvantage of social media is that it decreases communication skills. Computer reliance can hurt a person's ability to have face to face communication by making it strange and awkward to hear something and respond by a thoughtful message through spoken word because of always depending on a keyboard to say a message

Recommendations for strategic use of social media

Social media made it possible for the #FeesMustFall campaign to be successful because students were able to communicate with each other through the use of social media in order to achieve the same goal which was free education. Campaigns like #FeesMustFall can only succeed if they work together and find solutions which will not cost properties being destroyed.       

  

#SayNoToXenophobia

   #NoToXenophobia

WE ARE ALL FOREIGNERS SOMEWHERE!! 

"We are all foreigners somewhere" talks about xenophobic attacks which usually occur in South Africa, which I think is not a way to solve challenges which South Africa is facing.
                                   
Xenophobia is the irrational fear and misgiving of that which is perceived to be foreign or that which is strange. Xenophobia is a crime in South Africa. Xenophobic attacks is not a best way to solve the problem of unemployment in South Africa like our citizen claim. Our country is just facing a problem of unemployment due to lot of people are going for the same courses and that creates the problem of lot of people waiting for the very same job. Foreigners are not the problem but the way our citizens think is the problem. I say no to xenophobia because I really don't see a reason why South African should attack foreigners by the reason "they are taking our jobs" because foreigners fill lot of gaps in our country, if you check here in South Africa most people don't want to be teachers and most foreigners are well trained in that industry.

Using social media as a strategy to get solutions

Social media can be used to get in touch with the target audiences and get feed back from them when necessary. #NoToXenophobia used the social media as a strategy to get hold of its target audience in order to solve the problem which South Africa was coming across. They used social media as a strategy to influence South Africans to stop attacking foreigners because the was no reason for all the attacks. #NoToXenophobia campaign also used the social media as a strategic tool to communicate with the public in order to get feedback from them and know what they think about the issue.  

   

Advantages and disadvantages of social media for Public Relations Practitioner 

Social Media create leverage campaign hashtags, such as the "#NoToXenophobia". The advantages of social media for P.R profession is that social media is faster and widespread coverage, it enables instant sharing of information and offer wider coverage of news and ensure it reaches more target audience. Social media made it possible for the #NoToXenophobia campaign to reach the ears of its target audiences. Visibility is also one of the social media advantages because social media can be used to improve the public awareness of the company or campaign and the overall business image as blogging and online mentions helps to spread the word about the company. Visibility helped the #NoToXenophobia  by improving it's public awareness. Social media also increase communication because it allow people to ask questions and get answers quickly from any reader with experience and varying enthusiasms. The are also disadvantages of using social media for P.R Practitioners. Although social media has many disadvantages, I will only focus on just two of them. One of the disadvantages of using social media is the lack of feedback control due to the negative responses a campaign might get because not everyone supports the #NoToXenophobia due to some different reasons which people might have. Not everyone is against the xenophobic attacks which are occurring in S.A, and also not everyone might support the #NoToXenophobic campaign so obviously the are negative response which the campaign might get after posting something. Another disadvantage of social media is that it lacks emotional connection. Social media is awful because you don't sense the emotion from the other person. I once saw the post about xenophobia on twitter, one of the person who commented on the tweet was a little bit rude and seemed offended by the tweet, when the person who wrote the tweet tried to apologize the person who commented just be like "Why are you apologizing because I loved what you said and I second that".

Recommendations for strategic use of social media 

Campaigns like  #SayNoToXenophobia are usually successful because they are not harmful to anyone. Such campaigns come with solutions which don't just benefit them as a campaign, but solutions which also benefit the country as a whole. Social media made it possible that the information of  "stop killing our fellow brothers and sisters" reached South African citizens who where part of the xenophobic attacks. Social Media also made it possible for the campaign to influence attackers to stop what they are doing by giving them reasons not to, reasons like, those foreigners gave us a place to stay while South African was under an apartheid era because we didn't have anywhere else to go than running to African countries, which today we are here attacking them when they want us to help them like they did. Campaigns like #NoToXenophobia don't have to think only for themselves but for a country as well.