#RhodesMustFall

#RhodesMustFall Campaign
Published by S Lurewana
24 March 2016


 #RhodesMustFall, social media advantages and disadvantages for PRPs 

#RhodesMustFall – a campaign of students and staff members calling up for direct action against the racism at the University of Cape Town. The main focus of the campaign is to create avenues for transformation that students and staff members be called and treated equally. The students and staff members believe that if the Rhodes Statue is kept on the institution premises then the university caters White students and staff, therefore there is no freedom at the university after this democracy era. 1. RhodesMustFall Oxford views 2. More about RhodesMustFall


Social media advantages of #RhodesMustFall and for PRPs

• Creates a channel for conversation – social media platforms with hashtags like twitter and facebook give organisations and public relations practitioners an opportunity to communicate with people/audience. Organisations also have an opportunity to respond and react quickly to comments addressing issues and concerns of the public. The #RhodesMustFall went viral/trended on social media platforms like twitter, gmail and facebook whereby not only students and staff members of the university of Cape Town expresses their views but also giving an opportunity to the public to be involved in the conversations based on the matter. Hashtags makes it easier for PR pros to respond to comments on time and also to get solutions to the issue through conversations under the hashtag, other organisations and institutions like Oxford University also became part of the #RhodesMustFall movement which means that hashtags create stable conversations not only in one place but also internationally, that gives an opportunity to PR pros to get more ideas on how to respond and react on a certain issue like RhodesMustFall.

• Reachability – hashtags makes it easier for public relations practitioners to reach a wide range of audience when communicating messages and executing campaigns. Creating the #RhodesMustFall made it easier for the public to give support and be updated on current situation regarding to the issue, for example EFF leader Julius Malema texted on twitter supporting that the Rhodes Statue be removed from the institution. #RhodesMustFall reached countless publics like apartheid era president F.W de Klerk wherehe called the movement/campaign “folly”, Rhodes university, University of Pretoria and Stellenbosch University also supported the movement. Social media advantage & disadvantages

Social media disadvantages for #RhodesMustFall and PRPs

• Time consuming – In order for a hashtag to trend, it has to have constant monitoring of activity and for it to not lose comments from the public. Publics needs to be updated on time on the current issue so University of Cape Town public relations practitioners might not get much time to respond to the current issue. Read about social networking
• Attracts current users – social media mostly attract the attention from current and active users, #RhodesMustFall updates might not get attention and support as needed because of some of users of twitter and facebook may be busy with other work or academic stuff not paying attention to social media. Read Pro and Cons of Social Media

                                          How #RhodesMustFall Started/video

Recommendations for strategic use of social media for future campaigns
I recommend that social media to be used only when necessary and to know what is the suitable time to reach your targeted audience. PRPs must interact with key people of the campaign so that when the is a need to comment or respond to an issue they know who to contact, to save time.









Rhodes Statue being removed...