Facebookanvändandet ökar i alla åldrar i Sverige. 2010 var hälften av alla svenskar med i ett eller flera sociala nätverk (Findal, 2010). Användarna skickar meddelanden, skriver statusuppdateringar, laddar upp bilder, planerar evenemang och chattar med sina Facebookvänner som ofta består av en blandning av familj, släkt, vänner och ytligt bekanta. Med tanke på blandningen av Facebookvänner uppstår frågan om hur de sociala relationerna ser ut och fungerar på Facebook. Skiljer de sig från fysiska sociala relationer och i sådant fall på vilka sätt? Tidigare forskning i ämnet visar att på Facebook kommunicerar vi ofta med personer som vi är ytligt bekanta med. Fem högaktiva Facebook användare har intervjuats inför denna studie. Resultatet av studien visar att informanterna bland annat använder Facebook till att chatta, skriva och skicka meddelanden och att skriva statusuppdateringar. De kommunicerar ofta med personer som de har svaga band med eller inte har möjlighet att träffa ofta fysiskt. Facebookvännerna är en blandning av nära vänner, bekanta och familj och släkt. Denna blandning av vänner leder till att informanterna är restriktiva med vad de skriver och vilka bilder de väljer att ladda upp på Facebook. Samtidigt så upplever informanterna att det kan vara lättare att kommunicera på Facebook än i den fysiska verkligheten, genom att informanterna ges möjlighet att vara mer eftertänksamma där än i den fysiska verkligheten.  Kommunikationen på Facebook är inte tidsbunden och interaktionen mellan informanterna sker inte alltid vid samma tidpunkt. Studien visar att deras användande av Facebook inte minskar deras fysiska sociala relationer utan i vissa fall kan öka dessa. Informanterna i studien upplever Facebook som användarvänligt och anser att layouten och upplägget är lätta att förstå.

Analysts, investors and entrepreneurs have for long recognized the value of comprehensive user profiles. While there is a market for trading such personal information among companies, the users, who are actually the providers of such information, are not asked to the negotiations table. To date, there is little information on how users value their personal information. In an online survey-based experiment 1059 Facebook users revealed how much they would be willing to pay for keeping their personal information. Our study reveals that as soon as people learn that some third party is interested in their personal information (asset consciousness prime), the value their information to a much higher degree than without this prime and start to defend their asset. Furthermore, we found that people develop a psychology of ownership towards their personal information. In fact, this construct is a significant contributor to information valuation, much higher than privacy concerns. (author's abstract)

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.

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-40).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Akron, Dept. of Sociology, 2009. / "May, 2009." Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed 11/18/2009) Advisor, Rebecca J. Erickson; Faculty Reader, Clare L. Stacey; Department Chair, John F. Zipp; Dean of the College, Chand Midha; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.

Στον ολοένα και αυξανόμενο όγκο πληροφοριών που υπάρχει διαθέσιμος οποιαδήποτε στιγμή στο Διαδίκτυο, ο τρόπος πρόσβασης του χρήστη σε αυτόν γίνεται διαρκώς ευκολότερος. Ο κάθε χρήστης του Διαδικτύου έχει ανά πάσα στιγμή τη δυνατότητα να βρει πληροφορίες συγκεντρωμένες σε έναν χώρο πολύ πιο εύκολα από ότι θα έκανε για παράδειγμα σε μια βιβλιοθήκη. Ενδιαφέρον παρουσιάζει ο τρόπος με τον οποίο ο κάθε χρήστης φτάνει στην εύρεση της πληροφορίας και η ενδεχόμενη ύπαρξη ενός μοντέλου στο οποίο βασίζεται αυτή η συμπεριφορά. Επειδή ο χώρος του Διαδικτύου είναι αχανής και πολύπλευρος, στα πλαίσια της παρούσας διπλωματικής επιλέξαμε να επικεντρωθούμε μόνο στις Σελίδες Κοινωνικής Δικτύωσης (Social Network Sites) και πιο συγκεκριμένα στο Facebook και στο Google+. Η επιλογή των δυο αυτών σελίδων έγινε με κριτήριο την ομοιότητα και των παρεμφερών δυνατοτήτων που προσφέρουν και οι δύο. Επίσης, μας δόθηκε η δυνατότητα να μελετήσουμε τη συμπεριφορά των χρηστών σε έναν χώρο, που για τους περισσότερους ήταν άγνωστος, όπως είναι το Google+, το οποίο μόλις πριν από λίγο καιρό έγινε διαθέσιμο σε όλους τους χρήστες του Διαδικτύου. Έτσι, λοιπόν, σχεδιάσαμε ένα πείραμα στο οποίο οι συμμετέχοντες θα αναλάμβαναν να κάνουν ένα συγκεκριμένο αριθμό παρόμοιων εργασιών τόσο στο Google+ όσο και στο Facebook και χρησιμοποιώντας τον Eye Tracker της Tobii καταγράψαμε τη συμπεριφορά τους. Αξιοποιώντας τις δυνατότητες, τις οποίες μας παρέχει το Tobii Studio, το λογισμικό που συνοδεύει το μηχάνημα, επιχειρήσαμε να αναλύσουμε αυτές τις συμπεριφορές βάσει κάποιων χαρακτηριστικών, που ονομάζονται μετρικές. Επειδή, όμως, το λογισμικό περιορίζεται σε συγκεκριμένα χαρακτηριστικά που υπολογίζει, κρίθηκε αναγκαία η ανάπτυξη μιας μεθόδου με την οποία θα γινόταν η εξαγωγή περαιτέρω χρήσιμων χαρακτηριστικών , ενός είδους εργαλείου σε πολύ αρχικό στάδιο ωστόσο. Τέλος, χρησιμοποιώντας το SPSS κάναμε στατιστική ανάλυση των αποτελεσμάτων τόσο του πειράματος όσο και των συνοδευτικών σε αυτό ερωτηματολογίων για να τα επιβεβαιώσουμε και στατιστικά. / In the constantly increasing mass of information that is available anytime on the Internet, the way each user accesses it becomes easier. Each user of the Internet has at any time the opportunity to find information gathered all in one place a lot easier than he could do in a library for example. The way each user comes to finding that information and the potential existence of a model on which this behavior is based, is of great interest. Due to the fact that the Internet is vast and versatile, in this thesis we decided to focus only on social network sites and more specifically on Facebook and Google+. The choice of these two sites was made based on their resemblance and the similar opportunities they both have to offer. In addition, we were given the chance to study the behavior of users in a site, with which most people were not familiar, like Google+, which has been made available to everyone only a couple of months ago. So we designed an experiment on which the participants would undertake a certain amount of similar tasks both in Google+ and Facebook and using Tobii’s Eye Tracker we recorded their behavior. Utilizing the abilities that Tobii Studio, the software accompanying the Eye Tracker, offers us, we attempted to analyze these behaviors based on some characteristics, known as metrics. However due to the fact that the software is limited only on certain characteristics that it measures, we judged it was necessary to develop a method that would extract some more useful characteristics, like a tool, although in a very early stage. Finally, using SPSS we made a statistical analysis of both the experiment’s and the accompanying questionnaire’s results to confirm them also statistically.

Presentación realizada en el marco de las VI Jornadas Nacionales de Bibliotecas Universitarias:"REDESCUBRIENDO LA EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR EN LA ERA DEL CONOCIMIENTO", realizado 28-30 de Mayo del 2014, Lima. Perú / Introducción: La página de Facebook de los Centros de Información de la Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas se creó el año 2013 como un espacio para interactuar con sus usuarios y como un medio de difusión y promoción de sus servicios. Metodología: Se realizó un análisis descriptivo de la página de Facebook de los Centros de Información utilizando la herramienta LikeAlyzer en los meses de febrero y mayo del 2014. Objetivo: Conocer el nivel de cumplimiento de los criterios analizados por LikeAlyzer, identificar las oportunidades de mejora, aplicar las recomendaciones e incrementar la puntuación global (LikeRank) en 5 puntos. Resultados: En el mes de febrero, la página de Facebook cumplía sólo con 10 (45%) de los 22 (100%) criterios analizados por LikeAlyzer. Se encontró que en la sección “Información de la página”: el nombre de usuario se registró adecuadamente, se consignó la dirección del sitio web y una breve presentación de los Centros de Información, por otro lado, no se evidenció el uso de hitos para resaltar momentos significativos de la historia de los Centros de Información, que la página sólo seguía a 8 páginas de Facebook. En la sección “Evaluación de la página”: se observó que se poseía 715 seguidores y que su tasa de crecimiento era de 28,97%. Con respecto a la métrica PTAT (People Talking About This) se observó que sólo contaba con 55 seguidores que habían interactuado con la página y que su tasa de participación era de 7,74%. En la sección “Publicaciones por página”: se identificó que solo se publicaba un post por día, que sus mensajes incluían una variedad de recursos como fotos (50%), links (41.7%), videos (4.2%), y estados (4.2%), pero que en su mayoría eran muy extensos, se publicaban fuera de la hora en que se conectaba sus seguidores y no los motivaban a interactuar con la página; tampoco se evidenció el uso de hashtags. En la sección “Publicaciones de otras personas”: se observó que las preguntas de sus seguidores se daban sólo una o dos veces a la semana y que el tiempo de respuesta a estas consultas era de 702 minutos. Conclusiones: En el mes de febrero, la página de Facebook tiene un número reducido de seguidores comprometidos, el número de posts publicados por día es mínimo, no generan mucha respuesta por parte de sus seguidores y el tiempo de respuesta a los comentarios es demasiado largo; asimismo, no se evidenció el uso de hitos ni hashtags. En el mes de mayo y después de aplicar un plan de acción que incluía algunas recomendaciones proporcionadas por LikeAlyzer se logró incrementar en un 28% el nivel de cumplimiento de los criterios analizados por LikeAlyzer, por otro lado se evidenció que la página de Facebook de los Centros de Información cumple con 16 (73%) de los 22 (100%) criterios, finalmente se identificó que el LikeRank se incrementó de 74 a 81 puntos lo cual es positivo para el análisis.

Background: Interest in brand avoidance, which is a form of anti-consumption behaviour is growing among scholars, marketers and consumers. The extant literature has focused on the positive attitude consumers have towards brands, failing to account for reasons underlying brand avoidance. Consumers purchase brands and construct their identities through brands that represent positive benefits (Lee et al., 2009a) and avoid brands that add undesired meaning to their lives. Purpose: Social media platforms facilitate the exchange of information among users, and companies use social media platforms as part of their marketing strategy to communicate their brand personality, engage consumers and build long term relationships with them (Ramadan, 2017), yet consumers are deliberately avoiding social media platforms. Five reasons for brand avoidance have so far been identified, but brand avoidance literature has not yet explored a specific social media platform. Leading social media platforms like Facebook are frequently used by consumers to generate content and to engage in social interaction. Consumers’ intention to use Facebook is demonstrated by regular visits to the platform and the time spent on the platform. However, some consumers express dissatisfaction with Facebook and deliberately choose to avoid Facebook. Hence, the purpose of this research is to look into the role of Facebook as an online service provider and explore the reasons behind the decisions to abandon Facebook. Method: The interpretivist paradigm is adopted since brand avoidance in this case concerns the negative relationship between consumers and brands within a social context. Due to the limited literature in brand avoidance this thesis employs an exploratory research design together with a qualitative and abductive approach. In the data collection method, the snowballing sampling technique is used, and this resulted in a sample that includes respondents from diverse geographical backgrounds. The abductive approach is used in coding, analysing and developing the extended brand avoidance model from the 15 semi-structured interviews that were conducted. Conclusion: The findings of this study show that several social media factors can lead to brand avoidance within the social media context. This resulted in an extended brand avoidance model that excludes advertising since Facebook does not advertise. In place of advertising, a new category named social media specific factors is developed. The five components identified were privacy, security, confidentiality, information overload and social overload. The revised framework not only provides insights in the management of brand avoidance, but also adds knowledge into the growing field of brands avoidance for academics and marketing managers by providing new information of an underexplored domain of brand avoidance within the field of social media service.

Stemming from a 2011 incident inside of a Facebook data facility in which hyper-cooled air formed a literal (if somewhat transient) rain cloud in the stacks, It was raining in the data center examines ideas of non-places and supermodernity applied to contemporary network infrastructure. It was raining in the data center argues that the problem of the rain cloud is as much a problem of psychology as it is a problem of engineering. Although humidity-management is a predictable snag for any data center, the cloud was a surprise; a self-inflicted side-effect of a strategy of distance. The rain cloud was a result of the same rhetoric of ephemerality that makes it easy to imagine the inside of a data center to be both everywhere and nowhere. This conceit of internet data being placeless shares roots with Marc Augé’s idea of non-places (airports, highways, malls), which are predicated on the qualities of excess and movement. Without long-term inhabitants, these places fail to tether themselves to their locations, instead existing as a markers of everywhere. Such a premise allows the internet to exist as an other-space that is not conceptually beholden to the demands of energy and landscape. It also liberates the idea of ‘the network’ from a similar history of industry. However, the network is deeply rooted in place, as well as in industry and transit. Examining the prevalence of network overlap in American fiber-optic cabling, it becomes easy to trace routes of cables along major US freight train lines and the US interstate highway system. The historical origin of this network technology is in weaponization and defense, from highways as a nuclear-readiness response to ARPANET’s Pentagon-based funding. Such a linkage with the military continues today, with data centers likely to be situated near military installations— sharing similar needs electricity, network connectivity, fair climate, space, and invisibility. We see the repetition of militarized tropes across data structures. Fiber-optic network locations are kept secret; servers are housed in cold-war bunkers; data centers nest next to military black-sites. Similarly, Augé reminds us that non-places are a particular target of terrorism, populated as they are with cars, trains, drugs and planes that turn into weapons. When the network itself is at threat of weaponization, the effect is an ambient and ephemeral fear; a paranoia made of over-connection.

This thesis uses critical discursive psychology to analyse anti-Semitic and Islamophobic discourse on the Facebook pages of two far-right organisations: Britain First and the English Defence League. Using the Charlie Hebdo attack as a time frame, I examine how the far-right manage their identity and maintain rationality online, as well as how users on Facebook respond to the far-right. This thesis demonstrates how Britain First and the English Defence League present themselves as reasonable in their anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic stance following the Charlie Hebdo shooting. Ultimately, I bring together the study of fascist discourse and political discourse on social media using critical discursive psychology, in a novel synthesis. The Charlie Hebdo shooting and the shooting at the kosher supermarket in Paris in January 2015 (as well as other attacks by members of the Islamic State) have led to Muslims being seen as a threat to Britain, and thus Muslims have been exposed to Islamophobic attacks and racial abuse. The current climate is a challenging situation for the far-right, as they are presented with the dilemma of appearing as rational and even mainstream, whilst nevertheless adopting an anti-Islamic stance. The analysis focuses on how Britain First and the English Defence League used the shooting at the Kosher supermarket to align with Jews in order to construct them as under threat from Islam, and promote its anti-Islamic stance. I also analyse visual communication used by Britain First to provide evidence that Britain First supported Jewish communities. Discourse from Facebook users transitioned from supportive towards Jews, to questioning the benefits that Jews brought to Britain, and expressing Holocaust denial. Furthermore, I discuss how other far-right politicians in Europe such as Geert Wilders from the Dutch Party for Freedom, portrayed himself as a reasonable politician in the anti-Islamic stance he has taken in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack. Findings are discussed in light of how the far-right communicate about the Charlie Hebdo shooting whilst maintaining a reasonable stance when projecting anti-Semitic and Islamophobic ideology, and how such discourse can encompass hate speech. I demonstrate how critical discursive psychology can be used to show how various conflicting social identities are constructed and interact with each other online. This thesis shows how the far-right use aligning with Jews as means to present Muslims as problematic, and how such alignment has resulted in the marginalisation of both Jews and Muslims.