An examination of the use and value of support systems for people living with HIV/AIDS in Makhanda
- Authors: Gorham, Catherine Margaret
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: HIV-positive persons South Africa Makhanda , AIDS (Disease) Patients South Africa Makhanda , Social networks , Diseases Social aspects , Health services accessibility , Narrative
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/432411 , vital:72868 , DOI 10.21504/10962/432411
- Description: Through the experiences of five people, this study asks how support systems develop, are used and are valued for those faced with the everyday challenges of living with HIV. Additional evidence is found in accounts from those identified as essential sources of support. These are primarily friends, sometimes family. This perspective is rounded out by insights gathered from those working in local organisations and in the analysis of services offered by the state. The three women and two men at the centre of this study live in Makhanda in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) is characterised by extremes of poverty and wealth, reflected in low employment, expanding informal and low-income settlement areas but also in a high level of community activism and access to resources. Each of the five tested positive for HIV variously between 1998 and 2008. These years were pivotal in the development of the local and national epidemic. The rapid expansion of infection rates, contestation over forms of and access to treatment, followed by emphasis of a biomedical response, in equal measure bracket and cut across their experiences. To this point, research is less concerned with what individual experiences say about living through the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Preoccupations lie more generally with macro- or micro-level factors, with behaviour change, managing risk and so public health – not the processes linking individual circumstances and choices to opportunities and outcomes described by individual, community and structural, socio-economic contexts. Personal accounts and observations of a developing, community-based, local response to an unfolding epidemic are therefore considered against the analysis of available medical and nonmedical resources. This enables identification and investigation of social processes operating between proximal and distal conditions, determining possibilities for access to support. The focus of this study thus falls to the interrelations of structure, agency and action. It contributes to an empirical and theoretical understanding of what “support” is, what “coping” means and what unfolds where diagnosis with HIV disrupts and challenges existing ways of coping and forms of support. The accounts gathered for this study offer an “insider” perspective, focused on what follows from testing positive to identifying what resources hold significance. Connections between individual, community and society, through psycho-social, local and macro-level processes are explored. Along with the empirical study of individual accounts, the thesis offers a theoretical framework that uses a grounded-theory approach in conjunction with the tools of narrative analysis. These are critically adapted from a sociology of illness studies. Ideas of risk and response, of material and social capital, of the nature of HIV/AIDS as an experience that is inclusive of both chronic, everyday challenge and critical, life-threatening crisis disrupting a sense of time, biography and self, are brought together in the analysis. In this way the understanding of what support means, how it develops and is used (systematically or not), and of the links operating between structural and social conditions, individual agency and action, can be developed. What the thesis finds is that, beyond the medical system of hospitals and clinics, there is surprisingly little use of available resources. There is thus an absence of any systematic support for those faced with the physical, psychological, social and material impacts of HIV/AIDS. Given the nature of personal circumstances, embedded as they are within local conditions that reflect structural constraints of the broader economy and society, this should not be surprising. A system of support exists in only the most limited definition. Against this, what is novel in these findings is the role that psycho-social processes play in negotiating these conditions and how this works, determining what unfolds. A key finding is that it is more through chance than choice that people do find conventional forms of support. The reasons for this have to do not only with limitations to state and institutional capacity, but also with the impact on individuals of perceptions of themselves shaped by the impact of the epidemic and also the past. The result is that under the burden of HIV/AIDS, in the context of extreme inequalities and the absence of an adequate response from the state, already invisible individuals who do not “count” run the risk of becoming doubly invisible. It is through a process of personal adaptation in which shifts in identity and a sense of self are key that they must find their own way. This involves re-conceptualisations of identity, a sense of self and place in the world. The focus on five people and the community in which they live is a limit to the scope of study Yet it is this focus which allows for a new understanding of the social processes involved, and so the links operating between individuals and society. This is of significance beyond the study of HIV/AIDS alone, contributing to the broader sociological project of understanding what it means to “be human”. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2023
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- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
A personality-based behavioural model: Susceptibility to phishing on social networking sites
- Authors: Frauenstein, Edwin Donald
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: Phishing , Social networks , Personality , Self-presentation in mass media , Internet fraud , Internet users Habits and behavior , Big Five model , Human information processing , Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM)
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/190306 , vital:44982 , 10.21504/10962/190306
- Description: The worldwide popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) and the technical features they offer users have created many opportunities for malicious individuals to exploit the behavioral tendencies of their users via social engineering tactics. The self-representation and social interactions on SNSs encourage users to reveal their personalities in a way which characterises their behaviour. Frequent engagement on SNSs may also reinforce the performance of certain activities, such as sharing and clicking on links, at a “habitual” level on these sites. Subsequently, this may also influence users to overlook phishing posts and messages on SNSs and thus not apply sufficient cognitive effort in their decision-making. As users do not expect phishing threats on these sites, they may become accustomed to behaving in this manner which may consequently put them at risk of such attacks. Using an online survey, primary data was collected from 215 final-year undergraduate students. Employing structural equation modelling techniques, the associations between the Big Five personality traits, habits and information processing were examined with the aim to identify users susceptible to phishing on SNSs. Moreover, other behavioural factors such as social norms, computer self-efficacy and perceived risk were examined in terms of their influence on phishing susceptibility. The results of the analysis revealed the following key findings: 1) users with the personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism are more likely to perform habitual behaviour, while conscientious users are least likely; 2) users who perform certain behaviours out of habit are directly susceptible to phishing attacks; 3) users who behave out of habit are likely to apply a heuristic mode of processing and are therefore more susceptible to phishing attacks on SNSs than those who apply systematic processing; 4) users with higher computer self-efficacy are less susceptible to phishing; and 5) users who are influenced by social norms are at greater risk of phishing. This study makes a contribution to scholarship and to practice, as it is the first empirical study to investigate, in one comprehensive model, the relationship between personality traits, habit and their effect on information processing which may influence susceptibility to phishing on SNSs. The findings of this study may assist organisations in the customisation of an individual anti-phishing training programme to target specific dispositional factors in vulnerable users. By using a similar instrument to the one used in this study, pre-assessments could determine and classify certain risk profiles that make users vulnerable to phishing attacks. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Commerce, Information Systems, 2021
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- Date Issued: 2021-10-29
Applications of social media and web 2.0 for research support in selected African academic institutions
- Authors: Owusu-Ansah, Christopher M , Gontshi, Vuyokazi , Mutibwa, Lois , Ukwoma, Scholarstica
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Social networks , Web 2.0. , Research -- Study and teaching
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6996 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018520
- Description: This study examined the use of Social Media/Web 2.0 for research support and it is guided by three objectives namely: a) to ascertain the uses of social media in academic institutions; b) to identify the challenges associated with social media use for research purposes and c) to provide experiences of social media application in selected African academic institutions. The study makes use of literature analysis in combination with personal and professional work experiences on the use of social media from librarians in four different countries. Institutional experiences of the four librarians showed that it is only Rhodes University Library that uses social media in its library, which is as a result of a formal social media strategy. For the other three universities, University of Education, Winneba Library in Ghana, Makerere University Library in Uganda and the University of Nigeria Library, the use of social media is not encouraging. They use it mostly for communication and interaction with colleagues. It was also discovered that there is no social media strategy available in these university libraries. Based on these findings, the study recommended the implementation of a social media strategy, appointment of social media librarians in these libraries, and continuing professional development of librarians to keep abreast with current trends. Web 2.0/Social Media is a new technology offering new options for African academic librarians in their research support role
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- Date Issued: 2015
Self-efficacy and social support of academy cricketers
- Authors: Cowan, Jenna
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Self-efficacy , Control (Psychology) , Social networks , Cricket players
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:9859 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1556 , Self-efficacy , Control (Psychology) , Social networks , Cricket players
- Description: Self-efficacy is considered to be a significant variable for enhancing all aspects of human performance (Druckman, 2004). Social support may influence self-efficacy through each of the four channels of self-efficacy information which consist of performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion and physiological responses (Bandura, 1997). The primary aim of this study was to explore and describe the nature of change that occurred in selfefficacy and received social support of university-age academy cricketers over the duration of an academy programme. The secondary aim was to explore and describe the relationship between the two constructs, self-efficacy and social support. Sixty-five male, university-age (18-25 years) provincial academy cricketers completed a social support measure and a self-efficacy measure specifically designed for the purposes of this study. These measures were based on Rees and Freeman’s (2007) items and Cox, Martens and Russell’s (2003) revised Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2 - Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump & Smith, 1990) respectively. The perceived pre- and post-academy personal ratings of self-efficacy and social support, obtained prior to the start of the South African Interprovincial Academy Cricket week, referred to participants’ perceptions before and after attending their respective provincial academies. An inferential pre-experimental post-pretest design was used. The results included significant changes found in self-efficacy, esteem social support, informational social support and tangible social support over the academy season. There were no differences attributed to the length of time a cricketer had spent at the academy or to the cricketer’s highest level of achievement in cricket. The only significant correlation that existed between self-efficacy and social support was the correlation between self-efficacy and x informational social support. This study provided an initial insight into the role of self-efficacy and social support in talented cricketers, especially in a South African context.
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- Date Issued: 2010