Browsing by Subject "Facebook"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Open Access
    An investigation into the influence of targeted-Facebook advertising through mobile devices on South African consumers' advertisement perceptions
    (2021) Wicht, Alina; Pillay, Pragasen; Mbumbwa, Tendai
    Digital advertising has become a multi-billion-dollar industry; and it is growing tremendously each year. In times of strong market dynamics, marketers are particularly aware of Facebook advertising as a powerful advertising form. The dynamic market situation also magnifies the need for marketers to monitor and analyse consumers' perceptions. The purpose of this study was, thus, to assist marketers in understanding the influence of targeted Facebook advertising through mobile devices on South African consumers' advertisement perceptions. The form of advertising investigated was in-stream advertisements. The aim of this study was to explore the role of South African consumers' emotions in relation to these consumers' attention to the targeted in-stream advertising on Facebook delivered via mobile phones. South African consumers view videos on their mobile phone through the Facebook platform, which can be interrupted by targeted Facebook advertising. This study investigated the role that the interruption of video watching bears in relation to the interpretation and perception of the advertisement by these consumers. Another objective was to explore the role of South African consumers' attitudes towards brands in relation to what these consumers remember from the advertisements delivered through mobile targeted in-stream Facebook advertising. The sample consisted of 13 South African consumers and was acquired using purposive sampling. This study was based on a perception-formation model, which is a composition formed from the perception models of different authors. The model was investigated using qualitative interviewing and the data gathered was analysed through qualitative content analysis. The results of the study provide support for the theoretical framework and suggest that consumers' perception of in-stream advertising on Facebook is influenced by various factors such as the nature of Facebook usage, emotions, the disruption caused by the advertising, the attitude towards the brand and the Facebook video viewed. Marketers may be able to influence consumers' perception of in-stream advertisements through more precise targeting, a better fit between the in-stream advertisements and the video and by limiting the advertisement occurrence. By shedding light on South African consumers' perceptions of targeted in-stream advertising on Facebook, this thesis could serve as a basis for marketers' decisions, and also lay the foundations for future academic research in this field.
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    Open Access
    Considering Broad vs. Narrow Personality Traits of Raters as Predictors of Rating Accuracy in Social Media Judgements of Personality
    (2022) Visser, Selene; de Kock, Francois
    Previous research has shown that the personality characteristics of raters seem to play a minor role in shaping the accuracy of their personality judgments of other people. However, as prior research studies relied largely on broad (i.e., dimension-level) trait measures to operationalise rater personality, it is unclear if raters' narrow (i.e., facet-level) trait measures may predict their rating accuracy. There are reasons to believe that narrow traits may relate more strongly to accuracy compared to broad traits, due to enhanced conceptual correspondence and improved fidelity (rather than bandwidth) relative to accuracy criteria. The aim of the present study was to determine whether narrow traits of raters predict accuracy, and if so, whether these narrow traits increment prediction of accuracy beyond broad traits. To this end, a secondary research design was used. Primary data from a previous study of 456 students' personality judgments of five target social media profiles were reanalysed. Personality traits of judges were operationalised at both broad vs. narrow traits and accuracy criteria were regressed against these predictors. In line with prior research on broad personality traits, the findings revealed that specific narrow traits were not generally predictive of personality rating accuracy from Facebook social media information. However, compared to broad traits, narrow traits were marginally better predictors of accuracy. Overall, results support the growing consensus that rater personality traits are not important to produce accurate ratings of personality, irrespective of the level at which we measure them (broad vs. narrow traits). The study adds to the growing momentum of research indicating raters can be accurate regardless of their personality traits. Therefore, organisations that wish to enhance their rating screening and training programmes might find more value in focusing on rater cognitive factors, rather than on their personality traits.
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    Open Access
    Crime in the suburbs: a critical discourse analysis of how suburban residents of South Africa, and the United States talk about crime on local Facebook groups
    (2024) Maguire, Zachary; Bosch, Tanja
    This dissertation aims to explore the ways in which suburban residents of Cape Town South Africa, and New Jersey, USA use local Facebook groups to talk about crime. While these locations may have many differences, in their respective local Facebook groups they exhibit very similar fears around crime. As suburban development continues to grow in both these countries, examining the culture these spaces help shape remains a valuable project. Notably, authors such as Rachel Heiman, and Nina Eliasoph have worked to outline the ways in which suburban residents work to create and sustain their identity in an American suburban context. Nicky Falkof has worked to do the same for the South African context, showing how fear of crime is reproduced on local Facebook groups. However, this dissertation aims to take these concepts a step further through conceptualizing this culture of fear as a global phenomenon and linking together these two locations. Utilizing scholarship on colonialism, and whiteness, this dissertation will illustrate how local Facebook groups work to reinforce an existing ideological construction of suburban spaces built on colonial ideals of domesticity, and individualism. Through a critical discourse analysis of posts and comments found on local suburban groups, in New Jersey and Cape Town, I illustrate how these spaces serve as key locations for the performance of a middle-class position, where residents work to both contest and reinforce middle-class ideals, of personal responsibility, and rational discourse. All of this is then framed in an economic and social situation of increasing precarity, wherein suburbs and their residents are forced to make sense of increasingly unstable subject positions.
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    Open Access
    Did COVID-19-Related Alcohol Sales Restrictions Reduce Alcohol Consumption? Findings from a National Online Survey in South Africa
    (2022-02-19) Theron, Marieke; Swart, Rina; Londani, Mukhethwa; Parry, Charles; Petersen Williams, Petal; Harker, Nadine
    Background: South Africa has a high prevalence of heavy episodic drinking (HED). Due to the high levels of alcohol misuse and violence, public hospital intensive care units were often overrun during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research investigated alcohol intake behaviour change during differing levels of lockdown restrictions, which included bans on alcohol sales. Methods: A self-reported Facebook survey ran from July to November 2020. The questions included socio-demographics, income, alcohol intake, purchasing behaviour, and reasoning. Chi-square tests/Fisher’s exact test for categorical data, Student’s t-test for normal continuous data, and the Mann–Whitney U test for non-normal data were applied. Multiple logistic regression was run for HED versus moderate drinkers. Results: A total of 798 participants took part in the survey, of which 68.4% were female. Nearly 50% of participants fell into the HED category and the majority bought alcohol illegally during restrictions. HED respondents who drank more alcohol than usual during restrictions reported that they felt stressed, needed to relax, and were bored. Conclusions: Policies intended to increase the pricing of alcohol may have the potential to reduce alcohol intake. Reducing stress and anxiety may be key to curtailing HED during emergency situations.
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    Open Access
    Digital professionalism
    (2012) Mitchell, Veronica; Southgate, Nicole
    The rapid, expansive and evolving use of social media has prompted the need to interrogate its impact for future health professionals. A new initiative teaching first year health science students about their online identity has proven valuable. The importance of communication skills and respect for others through social media is identified and explained.
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    Open Access
    Tell me about your (Facebook) self: recruiter personality traits and accuracy of personality judgement of candidate Facebook profiles
    (2018) Rauch, Philippa; de Kock, Francois
    The use of social networking sites, such as Facebook, in the job application screening process has changed the recruitment landscape. Many human resource (HR) professionals and recruiters have begun to use social networking sites as a tool to attract, source and screen potential candidates. When screening candidates’ Facebook profiles, recruiters make personality judgements that have important consequences for hiring decisions. However, little is known about what makes a good judge of personality in the world of online screening for recruitment. This study investigated the relationship between recruiters’ Big Five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience and neuroticism) and their ability to judge accurately candidates’ personality traits from their Facebook profiles. In particular, distinctive accuracy measures were employed which account for personality profile normativeness, or the degree to which applicants being rated are generally alike – an important limitation of earlier profile accuracy measures. Results from 456 university students who judged five actual Facebook profiles for which ‘true score’ estimates on personality traits were possible, revealed that recruiters were generally able to infer applicants’ personality traits from their Facebook profiles. However, recruiter personality was not an important factor in their judgement accuracy, neither when accuracy was operationalised as traditional profile accuracy measures, nor as distinctive accuracy.
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    The role of social media in the spread of health misinformation in South Africa: the Netwerk24 Facebook page, Afrikaner identity, and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy
    (2024) Davies-Laubscher, Nicola; Bosch, Tanja
    The increase in health misinformation shared on social media resulted in the World Health Organisation declaring an ‘infodemic' (or information pandemic) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Health misinformation can have serious consequences, including public resistance to health initiatives such as vaccine uptake and the endorsement of pseudoscientific health practices. This study uses qualitative content analysis and ethnographic methods to examine the comments of misinformation related to COVID-19 that were posted by White Afrikaans speakers (or Afrikaners) on the Netwerk24 Facebook Page during a two-year period of the pandemic spanning 1 March 2020 until 28 February 2022. Categorising the themes of misinformation shared among commentators, the study uses social identity theory and populism to explore the types of misinformation shared by Afrikaners on Facebook and seeks to determine how these comments of misinformation reflect the dominant markers of Afrikaner social identity. In recent years, misinformation shared via online platforms has been confounded by a global rise in populism, a political approach closely tied to social identity theory and the ways in which individuals derive a sense of self from their membership to different social groupings. This thesis explores how Afrikaners used the Netwerk24 Facebook Page to disseminate COVID-19 misinformation that mirrored populist trends in the United States under the presidency of Donald Trump. Using social identity theory, the study explores how the Afrikaners' group affiliations and perceptions of ‘us versus them' contributed to the formation and appeal of a growing populist narrative that emphasise the interests of a particular group over others. The decision to employ ethnography as the primary research methodology in this study came from recognising in the comments on the Netwerk24 Facebook Page the same dialogue that symbolised my upbringing in a conservative White Afrikaans society during apartheid. Being conscious of my own identity within the broader context of those participating in the comments section of the Netwerk24 Facebook Page afforded me unique insights into the participants' viewpoints, especially in how they relate to the concept of an Afrikaner identity.
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    Using online social networking for teaching and learning: Facebook use at the University of Cape
    (2009) Bosch, Tanja E
    Web-based learning has made learning content much more freely and instantaneously available to students who can download course notes and readings with a single mouse click. Facebook is one of many Web 2.0 tools – wikis, delicious, YouTube, podcasts – that are listed as having potential applications for teaching and learning. Moreover, it has been argued that the current generation of youth, often described as Net Geners or Digital Natives, may be resistant to traditional methods of teaching and learning. This article explores student use of Facebook at the University of Cape Town, as well as lecturer engagement with students via the new social media. Drawing on a virtual ethnography and qualitative interviews, this article shows that while there are potential positive benefits to using Facebook in teaching and learning, particularly for the development of educational micro-communities, certain challenges, including ICT literacy and uneven access, remain pertinent.