Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2009. / Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until June 1, 2013. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-242)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until June 1, 2013. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-242)

Sammanfattning Titel – Gilla, dela och kommentera: Hur svenska fastighetsmäklarföretag använder sociala medier Författare - Ellinor Hult och Malin Wallén Handledare - Bo Rundh Ämne - Kandidatuppsats i företagsekonomi Problemformulering - Studien fokuserar på hur svenska fastighetsmäklarföretag hanterar sociala medier och uppsatsens funktion är att ge en insikt i fastighetsmäklarföretagens användande av sociala medier samt vilka möjligheter och problem det kan leda till. Syfte - Syftet är att undersöka hur ett fastighetsmäklarföretag använder sig av sociala medier som en del av marknadsföringen. Metod - Studien har genomförts med en kvalitativ enkätundersökning som skickades ut till de 13 största rikstäckande fastighetsmäklarföretagen i Sverige för att få en förståelse för hur de arbetar med sociala medier. Resultat - Det är många företag inom fastighetsmäklarbranschen som använder sociala medier och har en strategi för sitt användande. Dock går det att utläsa från studien att flertalet företag bör se över och möjligen tydliggöra sina strategier för att få ett bättre hanterande av medierna. Utifrån analysen kan det också konstateras att fastighetsmäklarföretag bör använda sig av sociala medier som marknadsföringsverktyg eftersom det enligt undersökningen genererar fler kunder, är mer kostnadseffektivt än traditionell media och fungerar som ett bra komplement till traditionell media. Fler faktorer som påvisats med sociala medier genom studien är att det är viktigt att hänga med i utvecklingen, att det är lättare att kunder inte uppfattar företagens information som reklam när företaget publicerar den skickligt i sociala medier samt att medierna påverkar många kunder. Avgränsning - De företag som undersökts är svenska och ger därför endast ett resultat över hur fastighetsmäklarföretag inom Sverige hanterar sociala medier. Det är dessutom inte alla fastighetsmäklarföretag som studien innefattar utan endast de som finns på flera platser i Sverige och leds av ett huvudkontor. Nyckelord - Sociala medier, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Fastighetsmäklarföretag, Marknadsföring, Sverige

This study explored college students’ perceptions of Facebook, focusing on their views of Facebook as an informal learning environment, how the features of Facebook motivate students’ learning, and the relationship between motivation and interest triggered when using Facebook. Participants were surveyed via an online survey program in order to examine whether their perceptions and experiences with Facebook (Madge, Wellens, & Hooley, 2009) and how the features of Facebook motivated users’ learning. This study provides evidence to support the idea that interest and motivated actions on Facebook are related. For example, students mostly read (click) posts that are related to things they are learning and therefore they are mostly self-motivated to reply to posts in which they are interested. In addition, in support of the four-phase model of interest development (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), students’ positive feelings, which is interest, plays a crucial role in developing individual interest which leads to self-regulated learning. / text

With a strong level of engagement through media, social networks expand communication territory in a manner that traditional media lacks the ability to, with the distinctive features of “participation” and “sharing.” With increasing engagement and penetration, social networks shed light on new channels of communication apart from traditional marketing norms and provide standards of adapting the rising power of their use. Marketing practices of Korean car markets is a typical example of integration of social media because the market contains fierce competition among brands. A difference in social media marketing appears between brands developing new products series with enough resources to do so and brands with suffering financial difficulties. Utilization of social media, one of the most powerful message delivery tools, is a barometer to estimate effective marketing implementation. Facebook messages conveyed by select automobile companies can be classified and compared to verify differences and commonalities regarding the structure of four brand equity factors raised by David Aaker: awareness, loyalty, quality and associated image. The results revealed that local brands and imported brands have focused on different equity categories and each brand has a different marketing emphasis. The imported brands are more focused on brand awareness and perceived quality as opposed to Korean local brands and their focus on loyalty. BMW delivers names of individual cars with new technology but Mercedes-Benz advertises their brand heritage in Facebook. / text

Because of technological advances and the blurring of boundaries, the world is becoming a global community. Global communications have made it essential for multinational corporations to develop and maintain a consistent worldwide identity and brand image. It is no longer possible to classify people into simple and stable segments of customers; the world is evolving and so is the population. The purpose of this research is to bridge the gap between the academic and professional world of international public relations by expanding the stream of literature and incorporating a global aspect. Within the last few years, social media has seen a dramatic increase of users around the world. Companies realize the importance of becoming a part of this generational trend, yet they do not understand the reasoning behind it, and, thus, do not develop a strategy for using social media to build relationships. Using content analysis, this study expanded on the stream of relationship management theory and social media literature by adding a global element. Results suggest that global companies are beginning to utilize the dialogic principles of information dissemination, disclosure, and interactivity/involvement. Additionally, strategizing Facebook post messages to have a customer focus (i.e., asking questions, posting multimedia, providing company information) will yield greater feedback and interaction.

The aim of the present study is to examine a self-help group on facebook for people with social phobia as to organization and content, but also to analyze how its function is related to the characteristics of traditional self-help groups. The study is based on a qualitative case study design in the context of internet research and it consists of two parts: a document analysis and an interview study. The empirical material is based on documents about how the group is presented online and the interviews are conducted with people active in a closed support group on facebook for people with social phobia. By means of analytical concepts from previous research on traditional self-help groups it seems likely that self-help online also can be characterized by mutual aid and experiential knowledge. However, as self-help online is not limited as to geographical or cultural aspects, it opens up a chance to receive help and support for people who experience social phobia in countries where social phobia is not an acknowledged phenomen. It is interesting to note that the findings seem to suggest that the size of the group does not play a particular role in the participants' sense of trust and experience of intimacy. The study overall suggests that self-help online can have a function of both compensation and complement to the ordinary health care system as well as to traditional self-help groups. Key concepts: self-help, mutual aid, experiential knowledge, social phobia / Syftet med studien är att undersöka självhjälp på facebook för personer med social fobi med avseende på organisation och innehåll samt analysera hur fenomenet förhåller sig till traditionell självhjälp.  Det är en kvalitativ studie som består av två delar, en dokumentanalys och intervjuanalys. Forskningsdesignen utgörs av en fallstudie i kontexten e-forskning. Det empiriska materialet består av en textanalys av hur gruppen presenteras online samt av intervjuer med personer som är aktiva i en sluten stödgrupp på facebook för personer med social fobi. Med hjälp av analytiska begrepp som tidigare forskning om traditionella självhjälpsgrupper genererat så kan konstateras att självhjälp på facebook också kännetecknas av ömsesidig hjälp och erfarenhetsbaserad kunskap. Det framkommer dock till skillnad från självhjälp face to face att självhjälp online inte är begränsad utifrån geografiska eller kulturella aspekter. Det innebär att personer som upplever social fobi trots att social fobi inte är ett accepterat fenomen/tillstånd i det land där personen bor kan finna både stöd och hjälp genom självhjälpsgruppen på facebook. Anmärkningsvärt är att storleken på gruppen inte verkar spela någon roll när det gäller deltagarnas känsla av tillit och upplevelse av intimitet. Självhjälp på nätet som studien visar har funktionen av både ersättning och komplement till hälso- och sjukvårdssystemet samt till traditionella självhjälpsgrupper.   Nyckelbegrepp: självhjälpsgrupp, ömsesidig hjälp, erfarenhetsbaserad kunskap, social fobi, facebook.

Using the social networking site Facebook as a corpus, I collected 1,500 random samples of interactions between friends. I tracked the use of jokes and disparaging humor between same- and opposite-gender pairs to discover that there is a strong correlation between the style of joke-making evoked by the speaker and the gender of both the speaker and the hearer. The men in the study were about eight times more likely to make insulting or degrading jokes with other men than the women were with each other. Following the study is a discussion where I address methods of politeness across genders, approaches to humor, and how sex, culture, and gender expectations influence our communicative choices. Though the discussion is based in our linguistic choices, the results of the study reflect trends that are present in countless aspects of society, and the issues that are raised go far beyond the spoken word. / text

Στην εποχή μας, τα κοινωνικά μέσα δικτύωσης και τα ηλεκτρονικά μέσα γενικότερα διαμορφώνουν συμπεριφορές και κοινωνικές τάσεις. Όπως είναι λοιπόν αναμενόμενο, ολόκληροι κλάδοι που επαφίενται στην ανθρώπινη επικοινωνία, όπως η διαφήμιση, επηρεάζονται από αυτές τις αλλαγές. Όσον αφορά το marketing, έχει μετασχηματιστεί πλέον κυρίως σε e-marketing και είναι ιδιαίτερα εστιασμένο στην προσωπική σχέση που είναι δυνατό να αποκτήσει το brand με τους πελάτες της μέσω των κοινωνικών μέσων. Είναι λοιπόν ιδιαίτερα σημαντικό να μπορεί κανείς να παρακολουθεί τις διαφοροποιήσεις και την κατεύθυνση στην οποία κινούνται τα μεγαλύτερα κοινωνικά μέσα δικτύωσης, ώστε να μπορεί να μεταλλάσσει έγκαιρα και την πορεία των αντίστοιχων κλάδων που επηρεάζονται. Στο μεγαλύτερο κοινωνικό δίκτυο του κόσμου αυτή τη στιγμή, το facebook, τα είδη των διαφημίσεων και ο τρόπος που αυτές μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν ποικίλλουν και έτσι δίνουν τη δυνατότητα στο διαφημιζόμενο να επιλέξει τη μίξη που εκείνος επιθυμεί και πιστεύει ότι ανταποκρίνεται καλύτερα στο σκοπό της διαφημιστικής του καμπάνιας. Είτε έχει σαν σκοπό την αναγνωρισιμότητα, είτε κάποια στοχευμένη ενέργεια, όπως η απόκτηση περισσότερων fans, η δημοσιοποίηση μίας εκδήλωσης ή η παρουσίαση ενός νέου προϊόντος, υπάρχουν αντίστοιχα κατάλληλα είδη διαφημίσεων για να εξυπηρετήσουν τους σκοπούς της διαφημιστικής καμπάνιας. Από την άλλη, ο χρήστης του facebook, ανάμεσα στις δημοσιεύσεις από τα αγαπημένα του πρόσωπα, εκτίθεται και σε έναν ελεγχόμενο αριθμό διαφημίσεων και έτσι είναι περισσότερο θετικά διακείμενος στο να τις παρατηρήσει και να αλληλεπιδράσει με αυτές σε σχέση με τα ηλεκτρονικά μέσα ενημέρωσης και ακόμη περισσότερο με τα παραδοσιακά μέσα διαφήμισης, όπως η τηλεόραση και το ραδιόφωνο. Η διαδικασία που συνήθως ακολουθείται όταν κανείς θέλει να τρέξει στο facebook μία διαφημιστική καμπάνια είναι ιδιαίτερα απλή. Το ίδιο το facebook παρέχει κάποιες βασικές οδηγίες, ώστε να κατευθύνει το διαφημιζόμενο ανάλογα με τους στόχους της εκάστοτε ενέργειας, καθώς θέλει να βοηθήσει τους διαφημιζόμενους ώστε να μένουν όσο το δυνατόν πιο ικανοποιημένοι από την απόδοση της διαφημιστικής τους καμπάνιας. Αφού η καμπάνια σεταριστεί από το χρήστη, υπάρχει αλγόριθμος με βάση τον οποίο τρέχει η διαφημιστική καμπάνια, ο οποίος βελτιστοποιεί την απόδοση των καμπανιών ανάλογα με τους στόχους που έχει ορίσει αρχικά ο πελάτης. Τέλος, μπορεί ο διαφημιζόμενος να μελετήσει την αναφορά της καμπάνιας για να διαπιστώσει σε πολλαπλά επίπεδα την απόδοσή της και πιθανά να εξάγει συμπεράσματα που μπορεί να του είναι χρήσιμα την επόμενη φορά. Στη μεταπτυχιακή αυτή εργασία δημιουργήθηκε πρόγραμμα με σκοπό να διευκολύνει την ανάγνωση της αναφοράς, περιορίζοντας την πληροφορία στην επιθυμητή κάθε φορά και δημιουργώντας template σε ευανάγνωστη μορφή. Ολόκληρες εταιρείες στηρίζονται στη διαφήμιση στο facebook και μάλιστα οι μεγαλύτερες από αυτές συνεργάζονται με το ίδιο το μέσο, με αποτέλεσμα να αποφέρουν έως και 40% καλύτερα αποτελέσματα στην απόδοση των διαφημιστικών καμπανιών σε σχέση με το αν έτρεχαν αυτόματα από τον αλγόριθμο του facebook. Στην εργασία αυτή ερευνήθηκε κατά πόσο όντως υπάρχουν περιθώρια περαιτέρω βελτιστοποίησης της απόδοσης μίας καμπάνιας από έναν άνθρωπο σε σχέση με τον αλγόριθμο βελτιστοποίησης, χωρίς περαιτέρω συνεργασία με το facebook και σε ποιες περιπτώσεις αυτό είναι εφικτό. Έτσι, προτάθηκαν τρόποι για συγκεκριμένες κατηγορίες διαφημίσεων που αποδίδουν πολύ καλύτερα, οι οποίοι αναπτύχθηκαν ύστερα από πειραματική φάση πραγματικών διαφημιστικών καμπανιών. Μπορεί κανείς να συμπεράνει πως είναι ιδιαίτερα σημαντικό, τη διαφήμιση στο facebook οποιουδήποτε ενδιαφερόμενου να την τρέχει εξειδικευμένο άτομο, ώστε να αποδίδονται τα μέγιστα, αφού ακόμη και ο αυτόματος αλγόριθμος του facebook έχει σημαντικά περιθώρια βελτίωσης. / Nowadays, the social media and electronic media in general shape attitudes and social trends. It is therefore to be expected, that sciences that rely on human communication, such as advertising, to be affected by these changes. Marketing for example has transformed in e-marketing and is particularly focused on the personal relationship is possible to acquire the brand with consumers through social media. It is therefore very important to be able to monitor variations and the direction in which they operate the largest social media, so that it can mutate in time and the course of the respective sectors affected. In the largest social network of the world, the facebook, types of advertising and how these can be used vary and thus enable the advertiser to choose the mix that he believes that better reflects the purpose of the advertising of campaign. Whether aims awareness, or some targeted action, such as acquiring more fans, disclosure of an event or a product launch, are respectively appropriate kinds ads to serve the purpose of the advertising campaign. On the other hand, the user of facebook, between the posts from his loved ones, is exposed to a controlled number of ads and thus it is more likely to interact with them. The procedure usually followed for running a campaign on facebook is very simple. The facebook provides some basic guidelines to direct the advertiser according to the objectives of the action, as he wants to help advertisers to stay as satisfied as possible the performance of their advertising campaign. After the campaign set up, there is an algorithm, which optimizes the performance of campaigns depending on the objectives initially set by the client. Finally, the advertiser can study the data of his campaign to check the performance and possibly draw conclusions that can be useful the next time. In this master work created a program to facilitate the reading of the report, limiting the information to the desired every time and creating template in legible form. Entire companies rely on advertising on facebook and even the greatest of them work with the medium itself, thereby generating up to 40% better results in performance of advertising campaigns in relation to whether he ran the algorithm facebook. In this study, we investigated whether indeed there is room for further optimization of performance of a campaign by a man in connection with the optimization algorithm, without further consultation with facebook and in which cases it is possible. Thus, suggested ways for specific categories of ads perform much better, developed after experimental phase real advertising campaigns. One can conclude that it is particularly important, advertising on facebook any interested to run qualified person in order to deliver the maximum, since even the automatic algorithm facebook has significantly improved.

In this thesis I examine the impact of interaction and participation on Facebook between private individuals and certain hierarchical groups in society, particularly with regard to individual privacy; consider the structure of Facebook’s privacy programming; and seek to establish where the balance of power lies between private individuals and commercial, political and media organisations. I make reference to Foucault’s theory of power, Bourdieu’s theories of power in social space and habitus and Althusser’s theory of interpellation as I record my research. This thesis is a qualitative research project, and I employ Critical Discourse Analysis as the principal research methodology. I focus on four cases studies: Facebook both as the internet platform which facilitates such interaction and the company which operates it; the developers of applications, such as online games, which are mounted on the platform; the network’s use by political parties and their leaders during the UK 2010 General Election campaign; and traditional media platforms as represented by two television annual ‘events’. My findings relate the manner in which individual users are constantly prompted to upload content, principally personal information, thoughts, preferences and relationships to the network, and simultaneously are pressurised into granting access to this information as they seek to fully participate on the social platform. This pressure is applied through applications that are mounted on the platform by commercial, media and political organisations, and I find that Facebook’s affordances to applications developers are instrumental in this process. My research associates these processes with the aforementioned theories of Foucault, Althusser and Bourdieu. My conclusion is that while Facebook continually revises its privacy policy to grant private individuals control over the content, that is the personal information, they upload to the social network, access to this information is a prerequisite for their full participation in the network. Facebook’s continuous introduction of new programmes ensures that private individuals have to choose between interaction and participation on the social network, or exclusion as access to many of the activities it offers is conditional on third party access to their personal information. Further pressure to grant access to the required information is applied through the ability of organisations to feature photographs of users’ Friends who are already using the relevant application. The processes indicate that Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg is slowly progressing his aim to place the social network at the centre of a newly structured Web based on private individuals.