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Perceived value and purchase influence of YouTube beauty vlog content amongst generation Y female consumers
Get PDFJournal Article. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences Vaal Triangle, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark CampusGlobally and in South Africa, the beauty industry, which includes high-involvement products such as skincare, fragrance, makeup, and haircare products, is experiencing robust growth, something partially attributed to the rapidly growing influence of beauty social media influencers. While increased attention is being paid to social media influencer marketing in academic literature, most of these studies focus on the characteristics of the social media influencer rather than on the content that they deliver. Moreover, there is a paucity of studies that specifically consider YouTube vlogs in relation to beauty products and Generation Y female consumers. The purpose of this research was to determine the perceived value and purchase influence of beauty vlog content on YouTube amongst Generation Y female (females born from 1986 to 2005) consumers from the emerging market perspective of South Africa. The study adopted an explanatory research design, whereby data were collected using an electronic questionnaire from 340 Generation Y female consumers. The results of the path analysis indicate that the beauty vlog content dimensions of informativeness, entertainment, and credibility collectively account for 72% of the variability in Generation Y female consumers’ perceived value of beauty vlog content on YouTube. In turn, this perceived value, along with its predictors, accounts for almost 50% of the variance in the purchase influence of such vlogs amongst Generation Y female consumers. These findings confirm the salience of beauty brands engaging with YouTube beauty vloggers when targeting Generation Y female consumers. Moreover, when choosing which beauty vloggers to engage with, the results highlight the need to seek out those with a proven track record for delivering informative and interesting beauty product content and who consistently exercise a high degree of integrity in their beauty product review vlogs
A method to determine reactive oxygen species production in intestinal and liver cell cultures using the 2′,7′-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate assay
No full textJournal Article Angicultural Science, Faculty of Natural and Agrucltural ScienceExposure to xenobiotics can increase the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). When detoxification organs such as the intestines and liver cannot neutralise these xenobiotics, it can induce oxidative stress and cause damage to tissues. Therefore, cell-based bioassays that indicate intracellular ROS production are a useful screening tool to evaluate the effect of these chemicals. Although flow cytometry is commonly used to measure ROS in cells, many research laboratories in the Global South do not always have access to such specialised instrumentation. Therefore, we describe a sensitive but low-cost method that can easily be used to determine ROS production in vitro. This method employs the fluorogenic dye, 2′,7′-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate (H2DCF-DA), which emits fluorescence after being oxidised to a fluorescent derivative. Since the H2DCF-DA bioassay indicates non-specific ROS production it can be used as a marker of overall oxidative stress. This method was validated by exposing human duodenum epithelial adenocarcinoma (HuTu-80) and rat liver epithelial hepatoma (H4IIE-luc) cells to agricultural soil samples • Production of ROS can be determined in vitro in intestinal and liver cells. • This method is inexpensive and can be easily performed in standard laboratories. • The method provides a tool for the high-throughput screening of environmental sample
How is the residents level of interest influenced (or not) by their perceptions of the social impacts of a recurring event?
Get PDFJournal Article, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Tourism Research In Economic Environs and Society (TREES)-- Potchefstroom CampusThis study evaluated residents' level of interest in a recurring event based on their perceptions of the social impacts resulting from the event. A survey was conducted amongst residents employing a questionnaire. The results revealed four social impacts, namely, destination impacts, negative community impacts, public impacts and economic impacts. Negative impacts and destination impacts are the top two social impact factors. The residents’ level of interest in the festival is low (with only 16% being avid fans), which is unexpected considering the periodic nature of the festival for the last 28 years. Unique to this study was that among the social impact factors, only public impacts were a predictor of residents ’level of interest in the festival. Festival organizers need to ensure that the positive impacts supersede the adverse effects to improve residents ’support for and interest in the festival. It was evident that residents do not necessarily support a recurring event, and that initiatives are needed to spark the interest of the residents as they influence the sustainability of such a festival
Impact of Border Closure on Economic Growth and Development in Nigeria during the Period of 2019-2023: Qualitative Systematic Review
Get PDFJournal Article, Faculty of Humanities, Social Transformation-- Potchefstroom CampusThis paper examined the benefits and drawbacks of border closure for Nigerians' economic development and quality of life. It specifically investigated the effects of the border closure on socio-economic development. Trade is crucial for a nation's economy to grow since it enables the emergence of markets, generates employment, lowers the poverty rate, and dismantles monopolies by discouraging the monopolistic control of the market by a small former Nigeria‘s president, Muhammadu Buhari, to stop the importation of smuggled goods, particularly rice and other household commodities. Nigeria‘s border closure policy under Buhari generated mixed reactions, while some believed that it was a good policy to boost domestic production and eradicate smuggling, others argued that such action could hamper socio-economic development and strain diplomatic relations between Nigeria and her neighbours in that region. The need to investigate these mixed reactions and ascertain the extent to which Nigeria and her citizens have suffered from or been affected by the policy motivated this research. Drawing on the secondary method that was sourced through desktop reviews, this paper examined the likely positive and negative outcomes of the border closure under the former president of Nigeria, Buhari. The results showed that the policy was haphazardly selectively implemented, as some borders in northern Nigeria were not closed, unlike those in southwestern Nigeria. It also revealed that the policy not only hampered Nigeria‘s socio-economic growth and development, but also strained her relations with her neighbours. It concluded that the border closure was more of a selective tool specifically designed to enrich some selected farmers or traders from northern Nigeria
Appraisal of indigenous language risk communication intervention for COVID-19 in Lagos state
Get PDFJournal Article, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, North--West University--Mahikeng CampusThis study sought to identify the language use, pattern of themes, and context of utterances used in risk communication messages for COVID-19 in Lagos State, Nigeria. COVID-19 pandemic poses a threat to the sustainability of public well-being globally. Hence, risk communication is becoming a plausible tool in curbing the spread of the virus. Existing studies have largely focused on clinical analysis for Covid-19, to the neglect of indigenous language risk communication interventions. In addition, to determine whether perceived panic resulting from exposure to indigenous language information on COVID-19 cases interferes with respondents’ comprehension of risk communication messages in Lagos state. The study employed the mixed methods of content analysis and survey to examine three indigenous language jingles. Four hundred respondents were also randomly selected for this study. The study found that indigenous language risk messages focused majorly on preventive measures while paying minimal attention to important factors such as COVID-19 causes, symptoms, and curative measures. Furthermore, the study revealed that unwholesome risk perceptions led to 52.8% of respondents paying little attention to indigenous language risk managers. Thus, the study advocates for the adoption of the COVID-19 Risk Communication Phases Model developed during the study
Decolonising the Church for Sustainable Development in Africa
Get PDFJournal Article, The Unit for Reformational Theology and the Development of the South African Society Faculty of Theology, North-West University, PotchefstroomAfrican ecclesiology and development have been highly influenced by the way White Missionaries Christianised Africa. Since Africa regained its independence, progressive scholarly attention was given to the decolonisation discourse, but ecclesial mission continues to bear retrogressive marks of colonial missiology. As Christianity has grown massively in Africa, while declining in Europe and the West, missionary trajectories have changed and a need for the African Church to contribute to integral mission, especially in relation to sustainable development in underdeveloped and developing Africa, has arisen. Therefore, the African Church ought to be interdependent, selfsustaining, self-governing and self-determining, while it appreciates and relates to Western churches as equal partners of the global Church. Problematically, countless African churches are still dependent on their Western mother churches, partners and donors to facilitate local ecclesiastic, leadership and followership development programmes, to the extent that some Africans provokingly infer that the God of the Church in Africa is White. As the gospel is inclusive, having White Westerners ministering to Black African ecclesial work is inclusionary and complementary. However, the failure of Africans to balance foreign support with contextualization hinders their integral mission and contribution to African sustainable development. The Church can only be transformative and relevant if it is well contextualised. Theoretically framed under decoloniality and based on a literature review, this study finds that the Church has not contributed much towards the African socio-economic and political development. It recommends the Church decolonises its sustainability, theological education, leadership development and mission to be contextually transformative
Analysis of the sustained poor audit outcomes in Mopani District Municipality
Get PDFArticle, Faculty of Humanities (Afrocentric Governance of Public Affairs (AGoPA)--Vanderbijlpark CampusBackground: Financial management and accuracy and consistency in reporting remain critical cogs of good governance in South Africa and beyond. The Auditor-General (AG) South Africa, being one of the constitutional instruments responsible for monitoring the consistent application of municipal finance frameworks, has revealed that despite sustained poor audit outcomes in municipal governments, there has been constant disregard for its positive proposals and recommendations for improvement.
Aim: This study aimed to analyse factors contributing to sustained poor audit outcomes in Mopani District Municipality (MDM) based in Limpopo province.
Methods: This study conducted a qualitative inquiry whereby data were collected from senior officials and documentary analysis of the Auditor-General’s statements was conducted to establish contributing factors to sustained poor audits in MDM.
Results: The results revealed numerous factors, chief of which are ineffective political leadership, weak internal audit systems and silo mentalities in municipalities in the district, which affect the financial performance of the district municipality.
Conclusion: Mopani District Municipality has not received a clean or improved audit opinion since 2016, and this has led to less commitment in taking collective action to address the Auditor-General’s concerns.
Contribution: The study ends by recommending practical steps to improve audit outcomes and financial governance, which are to build a strong internal audit system and design a district calendar for financial reporting to help the district municipality make timeous submissions of credible financial information during an audit
Developmental social work training programmes in the Global South: A scoping review.
Get PDFJournal Article. Community Psychosocial Research, Faculty of Health Sciences, North-West University, PotchefstroomIn moving away from South Africa’s colonial past, social work training needs to embrace indigenised content and empower social workers to move towards practising from a developmental social work perspective. This requires a paradigm shift towards developmental social work training in South Africa. This study was conducted to look at the characteristics and challenges of developmental social work training in the Global South in order for South African social work training institutions to learn from the data and implement more an effective developmental social work training programme. The study was conducted through a scoping review. The five-step scoping review methodology was used to investigate and select recent literature on developmental social work training in the Global South. A thematic analysis was then used to scrutinise selected articles to extract core conclusions and recommendations made by authors to answer research questions. In addition to answering the research question about the characteristics and challenges to teaching developmental social work in the Global South, six main themes that should be highlighted when teaching developmental social work in the Global South were identified and are discussed in the article. These themes are critical thinking and reflective practice; political social work; field placement programmes; indigenisation; de-colonisation and historical context; economic development and empowerment and theoretical course content. For social work to stay relevant in the Global South, it is important for governments to provide universities with resources to enable them to implement effective developmental social work training
Cosmic-Ray Transport in the Presence of a Fisk-type Heliospheric Magnetic Field: Investigating the Influence of Drift
No full textArticle, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (Centre for Space Research (CSR)--Northwest University, Potchefstroom CampusDrifts due to the gradients in, and curvatures of, the heliospheric magnetic field (HMF) play a significant role in the transport of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) in the heliosphere. Although this has been well studied for the Parker HMF, the influence of Fisk-type fields, with their unique geometry, has hitherto received less attention. Here, drift velocity profiles computed for a Schwadron–Parker hybrid field are compared with those for a purely Parkerian field. Furthermore, the influence of this field on GCR modulation, as computed with a 3D, ab initio, modulation model, is investigated. Globally, the differences between the computed intensities are small. Nevertheless, local measures, such as azimuthal variations in the GCR intensities, show a significant influence of the Schwadron Parker hybrid field on GCR transport
Biosynthesis of nanoparticles using microorganisms: A focus on endophytic fungi
Get PDFArticle, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (Food Security and Safety)--Mahikeng CampusThe concept of this review underscores a significant shift towards sustainable agricultural practices, particularly from the view point of microbial biotechnology and nanotechnology. The global food insecurity that causes increasing ecological imbalances is exacerbating food insecurity, and this has necessitated eco-friendly agricultural innovations. The chemical fertilizers usage aims at boosting crop yields, but with negative environmental impact, thus pushing for alternatives. Microbial biotechnology and nanotechnology fields are gaining traction for their potential in sustainable agriculture. Endophytic fungi promise to synthesize nanoparticles (NPs) that can enhance crop productivity and contribute to ecosystem stability. Leveraging on endophytic fungi could be key to achieving food security goals. Endophytic fungi explore diverse mechanisms in enhancing plant growth and resilience to environmental stresses. The application of endophytic fungi in agricultural settings is profound with notable successes. Hence, adopting interdisciplinary research approaches by combining mycology, nanotechnology, agronomy, and environmental science can meaningfully serve as potential pathways and hurdles for the commercialization of these biotechnologies. Therefore, setting regulatory frameworks for endophytic nanomaterials use in agriculture, by considering their safety and environmental impact assessments will potentially provide future research directions in addressing the current constraints and unlock the potential of endophytic fungi in agriculture