WhatsApp Adoption for the Honing of University Students' Career Management Competencies: A Netnograghic Approach

This study employs an Afro-centric framework of Digital "Unhu" (i.e. digital humanism) and netnographic accounts of supervisor-supervisee interactions to investigate Mobile Instant Messaging mediated interaction as a platform for honing students' career management competencies. While many existing studies foreground Western epistemological lenses that have limited resonance with resource-constrained African contexts, the Afro-centric Digital "Unhu" framework enabled a more nuanced delineation of student-supervisor interaction as it was enacted in a South African university setting. Findings demonstrated that WhatsApp-mediated interaction, framed within the African ethos of Digital "Unhu," provided a dynamic and highly personal environment in which the supervisor could delicately coach students in various career related processes, namely, the negotiation of competing family and job hunt commitments, career planning, job applications and salary negotiations, resignations, and managing career frustrations. More broadly, the study demonstrates the central role of "Unhu" in negotiating student-supervisor interactions in the unique cultural setting, in tension to a degree with the Western philosophical thinking in which South African higher education is situated. Further, contrary to common characterisations of texting culture as a youth phenomenon, both student and supervisor were able to leverage WhatsApp to achieve career management ends.