Thesis (MTh)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Technology plays such an important role in the lives of today’s youth, that the use of technology causes existential change in their lives and even challenges the way we understand and define church. The existential changes that will be referred to in this study refers to the influence the use of technology has on all aspects of the users life; the forming of identity as Christian, interaction with people in and outside their social grouping, in and outside congregations, online and offline, the way youth gets involved in world events and the use of material things. Throughout this study it should be evident that the use of social media must be seen as a necessity for effective communication in youth ministry. Not only should the use of social media be a part of youth ministry, but the effect it has on youth should also be noted. This study will, with the previous information in mind, develop a better understanding of how Facebook is used by youth workers to promote relational youth ministry. The research question can thus be put as follow: How can the use of Facebook make a contribution to relational youth ministry? With the goal and background of this study in mind, different chapters will be dedicated to the different goal settings for this study, like they are listed on page 3, namely: Discussion of the theological essence of this study (chapter 2), discussion of the theological grounding of relational youth ministry (chapter 3), the determining of the prominence of relationships during the phase of adolescence (chapter 4), the determining of the role of social media on the lives of adolescents (chapter 5), description of the research methodology of the study (chapter 6) and the determining of the impact the use of Facebook has on relationships in youth ministry (chapter 7). Chapter 8 concludes this study with final remarks on the findings of this research, for example: Adolescents does not use Facebook like expected, but Facebook still provides youth workers the potential to form and maintain relationships. Suggestions is also made in this last chapter for example: congregations should reevaluate the audience of their Facebook communication and also that certain other social media platforms should be used in synergy with Facebook for more effective communication with adolescents in creating, maintaining and enhancing relationships. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Tegnologie speel so ’n belangrike rol in die lewens van veral die hedendaagse jeug dat die gebruik daarvan ’n eksistensiële verandering teweegbring en selfs die wyse van kerk-wees uitdaag. Die eksistensiële verandering in hierdie studie sal verwys na die invloed wat die gebruik van hierdie tegnologie het op alle aspekte van die gebruiker se bestaan, bv. die vorming van identiteit as Christen, interaksie met mense binne en buite hulle sosiale groep, binne en buite gemeentes en aanlyn en van lyn af, die manier waarop jeug betrokke is by wêreldgebeure en die verbruik van goedere. Tydens hierdie studie behoort dit duidelik te word dat die gebruik van sosiale media in jeugbediening nodig is as daar op ’n effektiewe manier gekommunikeer wil word. Nie net behoort die gebruik van sosiale media ’n deel te vorm van bediening aan die jeug nie, maar daar moet ook gelet word op die effek daarvan op die jeug. Hierdie studie wil, met bogenoemde in ag geneem, ’n beter verstaan ontwikkel van die gebruik van Facebook deur jeugwerkers ter bevordering van verhoudingsgerigte jeugbediening. Die navorsingsvraag kan dus so gestel word: Hoe kan die gebruik van Facebook bydra tot die bevordering van verhoudingsgerigte jeugbediening? Met die doel van die studie en die agtergrond daarvan in gedagte, sal in die volgende hoofstukke in diepte aandag gegee word aan die verskillende doelstellings wat gestel word op bl. 3, naamlik: Die stel van die teologiese aard van die studie (hoofstuk 2), die stel van die teologiese begronding vir verhoudingsgerigte jeugbediening (hoofstuk 3), die bepaling van die prominensie van verhoudings tydens die fase van adolessensie (hoofstuk 4), die bepaling van die rol van sosiale media in die lewens van adolessente (hoofstuk 5), Beskrywing van die navorsingsmetodologie wat gevolg is in die studie (hoofstuk 6) en vasstelling of die gebruik van Facebook enige impak het op verhoudings binne jeugbediening (hoofstuk 7). Hoofstuk 8 sluit die studie af met konklusies oor die bevindings van hierdie navorsing soos dat Facebook moontlik nie deur adolessente gebruik word soos verwag nie, maar dat die gebruik van Facebook steeds geleentheid aan jeugwerkers/jeugpredikante bied vir die vorming en instandhouding van verhoudings. Voorstelle word ook gemaak soos dat gemeentes se Facebook kommunikasie gehoor geherevalueer moet word en dat sekere ander sosiale media platforms, in samewerking met Facebook, gebruik moet word om meer effektief met adolessente te kommunikeer ter vorming, instandhouding en bevordering van verhoudings.

The rapid technological development of the media and the Internet has brought new ways to communicate and socialize. Social media is an undeniable force with its fast, simple and informal communication style and health care today is a relatively new concept to convey health information through social networks. This provides opportunities for various healthcare organizations to market themselves and pass out health information but also the responsibility of the challenges and risks related to information posted, the organization's reputation, privacy risks and personal integrity. The thesis intends to explore how the BVC perceive this form of forums regarding obstacles and opportunities and what they think about Facebook as a communication channel for communicating health information to parents. The aim was also to investigate how the BVC through social media can contribute their dedication and skills on Facebook and how BVC feel they can support parents through Facebook. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four different health care activities and then transcribed. Based on theory and empirical sections were then made comparisons to find similarities and differences. The analysis was based on various themes in the interview guide. The results show that health care businesses do not see any disadvantages to a Facebook page about good review held and inappropriate posts will be deleted. Questions of a personal nature and the treatments are prohibited due to patient confidentiality. It´s important for healthcare businesses to market themselves. The Facebook page is used as information on which the BVC nurse demonstrates the commitment by informing and encouraging participation in parent groups and lectures on the BVC. It´s considered important to be on Facebook today where the majority of the audience are today.

This thesis addresses the question of whether or not online interactional practices are systematically different from interaction in other contexts, particularly spoken interaction. I will establish how the organization of online interaction demonstrates participants orientations to the technological affordances of the online medium. The dataset for the study comprises one-to-one interaction between friends, conducted using the chat application of the social networking site, Facebook. Chat logs and screen capture data were used to analyze how participants engaged in, and managed, their unfolding interaction. The data were analyzed using conversation analysis (CA). CA was developed originally for the analysis of spoken talk, but in this dissertation it provides an empirical basis for comparing Facebook chat and spoken interaction. The thesis demonstrates how CA can be used for analyzing online interaction. The first analytic chapter provides an overview of how participants organize the generic orders of interaction. The findings suggest that participants draw on their knowledge of both spoken and written interaction when managing the particular interactional constraints and affordances of Facebook chat. The second analytic chapter focuses on chat openings, comparing them to openings in spoken interaction. The findings reveal some similarities, but also systematic differences which orient to the design of the chat software. The third analytic chapter examines topic management, including topic-initiation, topic change and the management of simultaneous topics. The findings suggest that the CA categorization of topic-initiating turns could potentially be extended by also analyzing action-orientation and also the epistemic stance displayed. The analysis also reveals remarkable similarities between topic change in spoken interaction and in Facebook chat. Finally in this chapter I show how organizational components of spoken interaction, such as adjacency pairs and tying techniques, are used to manage simultaneous topics. The final analytic chapter focuses on self-repair in Facebook chat. The analysis reveals that self-repairs completed during message construction orient to the same interactional contingencies as self-repairs in spoken interaction. However, the affordances of Facebook chat enable these repairs to be hidden from the recipient. Visible repairs tend to be corrections, with the affordances impacting the sequential placement of such repairs. Finally, I show how participants self-repair in response to the actions of their co-participant. Overall, the findings reveal a number of similarities between the organization of Facebook chat and spoken interaction. The analysis also reveals that participants attend to the technological affordances of Facebook in a variety of ways. Finally, this thesis demonstrates that, while there are differences between the interactional practices of spoken and online written interaction, CA can be used to analyze, and subsequently explain, such differences.

The goal of this study is to see how risk assessment is executed on the social media platform Facebook. The aim is to see how risk assessment in contrast of Ulrich Becks (2012) theory about risk society and reflexive modernization can help understand how users on Facebook minimize the possible risk of their actions on Facebook. The study is of a qualitative variety and is based on interviews with ten different Facebook users and processed by being thematised by criminalty, risks of health, politic risks, economical risks and risks about integrity. It is also summarized by different strategies to minimize risks that the participants discussed in the interviews. The most important results in this study was connected to risks about source criticism and actions that could have an impact on work-related questions. It was possible to see in the study that if a user had knowledge about potential risks they were mostly more likely to protect themselves against it. Also it concludes that in some cases experience that users learns from does not have to be related to their own experiences.

Studiens resultat pekar på att text/länkformatet är det format som genererar mest engagemang hos mottagarna på Facebook och att de inläggen som är personliga/informativa uppskattas mest bland mottagarna på Facebook. Videoinlägg är generellt det inläggsformat som är minst effektivt samtidigt som det är ett format som delas ungefär lika ofta som andra typer av inläggsformat. Bildinlägg är i stort sett lika engagerande som text/länk-inläggen och bekräftar således tidigare forskning om att bildinlägg är en effektiv metod för att skapa engagemang. Studiens resultat visar också på att reklambaserade och uppmanande inlägg har en mindre effekt än personliga och informativa inlägg.

Titel: Employee advocacy på Facebook - En studie ur konsumenternas perspektiv Författare: Ylva Nelson och Ebba Sjöstrand Handledare: Anders Wrenne Institution: Institutionen för industriell ekonomi, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola Kurs: Kandidatarbete i Företagsekonomi, 15 högskolepoäng Syfte: Den här studien syftar till att öka kunskapen om employee advocacy genom att studera forskningsområdet ur konsumenternas perspektiv. Metod: En enkätundersökning med 203 respondenter. Slutsatser: Studien visar att konsumenternas vilja att besöka att varumärkes Facebook-sida blir mindre vid kännedomen att företaget använder sig av belönad employee advocacy. Resultatet gick inte att härleda till konsumenternas ålder. / Title: Employee advocacy on Facebook - A study from the consumer perspective Authors: Ylva Nelson and Ebba Sjöstrand Supervisor: Anders Wrenne Department: Department of industrial economics, Blekinge Institute of Technology Course: Bachelor’s thesis in Business Administration, 15 credits Method: A survey consisting of 203 respondents. <img src="file:///page2image11312" />Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the knowledge of employee advocacy by studying the field of research from the consumer perspective. Results: The study shows that consumers' willingness to visit a brand's Facebook page will be smaller with the knowledge that the company uses rewarded employee advocacy. The result could not be derived from consumer age.

Syftet med undersökningen är att se hur begripliga Röda Korset Västerås Integrations Facebookinlägg är. För att besvara syftet utgår textanalysen från en läsbarhetsanalys som fokuserar på bland annat texternas språk och innehåll. Resultatet visar att det som försvårar Facebookinläggen och gör det svårbegripligt inte har med meningslängden att göra, utan det svårbegripliga ligger i den bristande informationen i inläggen. Läsarna får således inte ut så mycket information i varje inlägg som de bör få, vilket gör det oklart och ställer krav på deras förkunskaper och motivation att själva leta rätt på ytterligare information om ett evenemang eller liknande. Röda Korset Västerås Integration når ut till en bred målgrupp och det är därför svårt att anpassa inläggen till varenda läsare, vilket gör det komplicerat. Det går dock att se att skribenterna försökt anpassa texterna eftersom inläggen är relativt lätta att läsa och inte komplicerat uppbyggda.

Aldrig tidigare har företag haft lika goda möjligheter till kommunikation gentemot sin kundbas som idag, vilket är ett resultat av internets tillväxt och skapandet av sociala medier. Facebook som är det största sociala mediet sett till antal användare har en styrka i att ge både företag och privatpersoner breda användarmöjligheter. Med hjälp av sociala medier kan företag gratis skapa ett konto och börja marknadsföra sig själva samt skapa och underhålla kundrelationer på en plattform som många privatpersoner dagligen använder. Det finns många studier som visar på stora positiva möjligheter för företag av alla storlekar vid användande av sociala medier för att skapa och underhålla kundrelationer. Den här studien behöver därmed inte fokusera på faktumet om företag borde utnyttja Facebook för byggandet och förstärkandet av sina kundrelationer, utan snarare hur detta kan göras inom området små detaljhandelsföretag. Syftet för studien att är att kunna beskriva hur företag inom detaljhandel kan använda sig av sociala medier för att skapa och underhålla kundrelationer. Frågeställningen vi valt att besvara är: Hur kan detaljhandelsföretag skapa och underhålla kundrelationer genom Facebook? Vi har använt oss av ett abduktivt förhållningssätt baserat på en hermeneutisk ståndpunkt. För att samla in information om hur detaljhandelsföretag använder sig av Facebook för att skapa och underhålla kundrelationer har vi genomfört semistrukturerade intervjuer med tre företag utvalda genom bekvämlighetsurval. Studien kom fram till att engagemang och undansatt tid för sociala medier är sällsynt för små företag inom detaljhandeln. Istället är det en redan existerande position som har Facebooksidan som ansvar vid sidan av sina huvudsysslor. Vi kom fram till att de fyra delarna engagemang, tid, strategi/målsättning och interaktion med kund lägger grunden för en framgångsrik kundrelationshantering via Facebook. Inom framtida forskning rekommenderar vi ett fokus på redan framgångsrika små detaljhandelsföretag och undersöka vad denna framgång beror på genom att titta på strategier och mätmetoder som dessa företag använder och hur dessa kombinerar engagemang, tid och interaktionsproblematiken som existerar idag.

Depression has a high prevalence among college students. Because it is a highly private (i.e. experiential) and socially stigmatized mental illness, it often goes undetected in daily life. The basic research question behind this line of research is how students' postings on their social networking websites can be used for the early detection of depression. The current research investigates how well depression can be gauged from MySpace profiles (Study 1) and Facebook profiles (Study 2 & Study 3). Across studies, the results reveal that depression can be assessed with a moderate degree of accuracy. In addition, Study 3 presents evidence that viewing "mini-blogs" allows for similar levels of accuracy compared to viewing an entire profile and the degree to which a person is Extraverted or censors information about themselves (e.g. Impression Management, Public Self-Consciousness) influences the degree of accuracy. Overall, the results speak to the idea that social networking sites can be a cost effective and clinically relevant tool to detecting depression.

Protection of personal information has become a critical issue in the digital world. Many companies and service provider websites have adopted privacy policies and practices to protect users’ personal information to some extent. In addition, various governments are adopting privacy protection legislation. System developers, service providers, and interface designers play an important role in determining how to make systems fulfill legal requirements and satisfy users. The human factor requirements for effective privacy interface design can be categorized into four groups: (1) comprehension, (2) consciousness, (3) control, and (4) consent (Patrick & Kenny, 2003). Moreover, the type of technology that people are engaged with has a crucial role in determining what type of practices should be adopted. As Weiser (1996) envisioned, we are now in an “ubiquitous computing” (Ubicomp) era in which technologies such as digital tabletops (what Weiser called LiveBoards) are emerging for use in public settings. The collaborative and open nature of this type of smart device introduces new privacy threats that have not yet been thoroughly investigated and as a result have not been addressed in companies’ and governmental privacy statements and legislation. In this thesis, I provide an analytical description of the privacy threats unique to tabletop display environments. I then present several design suggestions for a tabletop display interface that addresses and mitigates these threats, followed by a qualitative evaluation of these designs based on Patrick and Kenny’s (2003) model. Results show that most participants have often experienced being shoulder-surfed or had privacy issues when sharing information with someone in a collaborative environment. Therefore, they found most of the techniques designed in this thesis helpful in providing information privacy for them when they are engaged with online social activities on digital tabletops in public settings. Among all of the proposed tested designs, the first three have proven to be effective in providing the required privacy. However, designs 4 and 5 had some shortfalls that made them less helpful for participants. The main problem with these two designs was that participants had difficulty understanding what they had to do in order to complete the given tasks.