Prof Melanie Wiese of the Department of Marketing Management attended a social media conference in Praque, Czech Republic, from 8 to 10 May 2016. Her paper, entitled ‘Perceptions, attitudes and behaviour towards advertising on Facebook’, was well suited to the conference theme, ‘Social media: Connected culture – The social media project’.

The conference was hosted by Inter-Dicisplinary.net, a forum for the exchange and interaction of ideas, research and points of view that bear on a wide range of issues of concern and interest in the contemporary world. The goal of the conference was to obtain different perspectives and insights into social media, to better understand this phenomena and its impact on the business world, economy and people at large.

The paper, co-authored by Prof Wiese and Head of the Department Prof Yolanda Jordaan, focused on predicting the antecedents and outcomes of advertising on Facebook across two countries: South Africa and Australia. The results of the paper indicated that, although Facebook users from South African and Australia do share various similarities in their perceptions and attitudes towards Facebook advertising, there was also explicit differences. South Africans valued the information supplied by advertisements, while Australians were more concerned about the social image and roles portrayed by advertisements.

The paper was received very well and the valuable insights of delegates from various disciplines, such as economy and psychology, aided in the further development of the proposed model.