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Public Perception of Higher Education Mergers
Media Review Analysis
Linda du Plessis
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Rationale
The perceptions of external stakeholders,
comprising the community, potential students and
industry are to a large extent influenced by what
is reported in the media. This paper sets out
to describe and analyse the merger discourse as
reported in the public media in an attempt to
identify key themes that dominated media reports
and henceforth influenced stakeholders
perceptions
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Rationale
Since the merger in the current study was one of
the first South African higher education mergers,
universities attracted much attention from the
media, resulting in extensive coverage of events
on campuses during this period. Several studies
have identified a significant relationship
between trust in institutions and the potential
perceived risk and perceived benefit by people
who consider further engagement with
institutions either as a potential student,
alumni, donor or employee.
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Higher education
The paucity of research and theoretical
propositions makes it impossible to explain the
potential effects of mergers in South Africa
(Jansen 2005). Moreover, existing theories of
mergers rely on organisational systems theory.
Higher education institutions have institutional
identities, are racially fractured, financially
unequal and historically recent in formation. The
National Plan for Higher Education states that
planning, funding and quality will be the three
core-steering mechanisms for institutions. The
merger process however had at its heart the
following objective creating new institutions
with new identities and cultures (DoE 2001, 89).
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Higher education
Institutions not only have to increase their
performance to meet national benchmarks, but
simultaneously support the creation of a new
institutional character. Marketing and
branding Two strategically important mechanisms.
Particular message about the organisation is
communicated to a target group via a specific
source
Public also receives information from external
sources (e.g. publicity and word-of- mouth),
which are not under direct control of the
organisation
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Market versus media
A university is the institution in society most
capable of linking the requirements of industry,
technology and market forces with the demands of
citizenship (Delanty 2001) Increasing links
with industry, greater competition locally and
globally, increasing marketisation and greater
expectations of accountability all fuel the quest
for market-like behaviour of institutions
(Barkley and Jeffries 2003, Ntshoe 2004). It can
therefore be concluded that publicity definitely
impacts the market forces relating to higher
education
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Market vs Media
Publicity as an information source refers to
information about the organisation disseminated
through editorial media, and which is not paid
for by the organisation (Collins and Stevens
2005) - typically non-personal mass communication
such as newspaper articles and may contain both
positive and negative information. Positive
publicity is positively related to organisational
attractiveness and strengthened the effect of
other recruitment sources. Positive publicity,
coming from an encompassed source lends a high
level of credibility - very effective element of
the promotional mix (Zottolo and Wanous 2006).
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The influence of negative publicity is difficult
to overstate

• A single item of negative information is
  capable of neutralising five similar pieces of
  positive information
• Negative information results in more strongly
  held attributions regarding product beliefs than
  does positive information
• The effect of negative information is more
  enduring than positive information
• Negative information more strongly influences
  attitudes and purchase intention than positive
  intention, particularly in the service sector

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Market vs Media
Branding and recruitment At root, a brand is the
promise of an experience. The goal of any
branding or integrated marketing program is to
help stakeholders both current and prospective
understand the real merits of the institution
and the value that it holds for them.
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Media
Over the past decade, deliberate efforts to
market universities have gone from being a
marginal activity to a strategic imperative.
Universities adopted an integrated marketing
approach, by which they try to coordinate all
their outreach activities to try to enhance their
particular image or brand in the educational
marketplace.
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Recruitment

• In a study conducted by Hearne (2009) to
  determine the most important factors that
  influence parents and learners choice of
  institution, they created the following three
  guiding principles for institutions
• Talk about how educational offerings will
  translate
• into career opportunities.
• 2. Be transparent in financial-aid procedures
  and offerings.
• 3. Talk about the less tangible attributes of
  your institutions. Making friends, learning about
  things that interest them and living in a place
  they will enjoy are important to students.

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Moeketsi Letseka, senior researcher at the Human
Sciences Research Council stated, Historically
disadvantaged universities are not doing enough
to market themselves or to change how the labour
market regards them academic journals are not
on the grocery list of Joe Soap, so how is he
going to find out what academics are achieving in
tertiary institutions right on his doorstep
(Gower 2008).
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Very few universities use the media to their
advantage. When a university receives major
funding for infrastructure upgrades, often the
media are not informed. University management
does, however, clash with the media over negative
coverage of student protests or staff disputes.
There are other opportunities to communicate with
the media. It is in the interest of universities
to publicise new policy decisions or when an
academic makes a major discovery. Professors
sometimes revel in getting their groundbreaking
research published in international journals, but
do not tell local media.
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• Negative publicity makes it difficult for
  institutions to win the trust and respect of the
  public.
• What is the correlation between the negative
  publicity and subsequent lack of trust and the
  number of vacant positions in higher education?
• .. publicity are often initiated by politial
  statements about higher education The report by
  the mistrial task team on social cohesion and
  transformation was released early in 2009 and
  lead to renewed emphasis in the media on
  transformation and racial issues

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Few Recommendations

• Learn from Politics?
• University leaders and marketers should establish
  trust relationships with the media and use the
  media more effectively to celebrate achievements.
• Universities and marketers should create
  opportunities to communicate with the media and
  to make them aware of the priorities that
  institutions are dealing with.

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Can we learn from politics?
There is another reason, however, and that is
the deeply felt impact of Obama. Obama's
campaign for the American presidency was the most
thoroughly modern campaign in the history of
democratic politics. He created a template for
running a successful opposition campaign which
has been carefully scrutinised by political
strategists around the world. The media formats
are secondary to the Obama victory, .. Obama won
because he correctly identified the issues that
voters most cared about, and offered policies
that assuaged their anxieties. He talked
constantly about the economy and reassured voters
with the promise of a middle-class tax cut and
good healthcare.
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UK London universities merge 05 October 2008
Guardian The merger will combine the
competitive excellence of the two current
universities across biomedicine, science, social
sciences, arts and humanities, and merge support
services for students and staff and the
management of estates. The new institution
intends to contribute to the health of the
population of south-west London, working with NHS
trusts and other university partners to establish
a network of excellence. Students said they
supported the moves. We hope to continue
working closely with Kingston. I am sure that
this will benefit the NHS in south-west London,
as well as medical education." Liz Owen, Royal
Holloway's students' union president, said "We
embrace the opportunity to work alongside our
counterparts at St George's to create shared
facilities, an improved support network and
student activities that will enhance the student
experience and are of mutual benefit to students
from both sites."
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Few Recommendations

• University leaders and marketers should establish
  trust relationships with the media and use the
  media more effectively to celebrate achievements.
• Universities and marketers should create
  opportunities to communicate with the media and
  to make them aware of the priorities that
  institutions are dealing with.
• News is about conflict, significance and
  prominence. There is clear evidence that negative
  headlines have a significant impact and that
  institutional management may need to work harder
  to inform reporters about the positive
  developments in their institutions.

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• The best universities succeed because they live
  and breathe that
• cardinal rule of branding - that its value
  exists solely in the minds
• and hearts of its community. Moreover, the
  university brand thrives
• on the persuasive power of received understanding
  
• because a university stands for certain values,
  it will
• attract people who share in those values, who in
  turn
• perpetuate and strengthen the brand

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THANK YOU