abstract: Social media has been extensively researched, and its effects on well-being are well established. What is less studied, however, is how social media affects romantic relationships specifically. The few studies that have researched this have found mixed results. Some researchers have found social media to have a positive influence on relationship outcomes, while other have found social media to have a negative influence. In an attempt to reconcile these discrepancies, the current thesis study explored possible mediators between social media use and relationship health outcomes which, to my knowledge, has not been investigated in previous literature. Three moderators were explored: type of social media use (active use versus passive use), relationship-contingent self-esteem, and social comparison orientation. The baseline portion of the study had 547 individuals, recruited from Arizona State University’s SONA system as well as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, who were in a romantic relationship for at least three months; the follow-up portion of the study had 181 participants. Results suggest that women who passively use social media exhibit a negative association between hours per day of social media use and baseline relationship satisfaction. Men who passively use social media exhibited a negative association between hours per day of social media use and follow-up relationship satisfaction, as well as a negative association with baseline commitment. While relationship-contingent self-esteem did not moderate the association between hours per day of social media use and relationship health, it was positively related to both men and women’s baseline relationship satisfaction and baseline commitment. Social comparison orientation (SCO) produced minimal results; women low on SCO exhibited a negative association between social media use and baseline relationship satisfaction, and higher SCO for men was associated with lower baseline commitment. Finally, exploratory post-hoc mediation models revealed that relationship comparisons mediated the association between hours per day of social media use and baseline relationship, as well as baseline commitment, for both men and women. Previous research supports the findings regarding passive social media use, while the findings regarding relationship-contingent self-esteem and relationship comparisons add new findings to the romantic relationship literature. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2019

<p>Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this essay is to analyze and discuss how MTV is affected by the development that takes place on the world’s media market. The aim is also to see how MTV’s target group’s image of the channel can give guidelines in how MTV should act in this new media era.</p><p>Material/method: I have examined the development on the media market and then created a model consisting of relevant factors that could affect a TV-channel today. Those factors and the two factors image and profile are then applied on MTV. I have done three interviews with people who work at MTV Networks Nordic and one interview with a person who used to work there. I also arranged three focus groups with members within the target group of MTV (15-24 year). The questions for all of the interviews were based on theories relevant to this study.</p><p>Main results: The results from the interviews and the focus groups showed that the profile and the image of MTV did not agree completely. An example of that is that the staffs of MTV saw the channel as a youth channel while the target group saw it as a music channel. MTV seems to go from being a niche channel to becoming a broader channel, a move that is quite unusual on today’s media market where niche marketing is the main strategy for TV-channels. People within the target group 15-24 uses the Internet more than TV an average day, and the younger members of my focus groups used the Internet more than the older ones. None of the members of the target group watched TV on their mobile phone but they assumed that younger kids would use it a lot in the future. All agreed upon that MTV was a suitable channel for mobile-TV.</p>

<p>Abstract</p><p>Title: The “Investigator” and the “Updater” – new patterns of news use among young adults.</p><p>Number of pages: 48</p><p>Author: Anna Strinnholm</p><p>Tutor: Amelie Hössjer</p><p>Course: Media and Communications, D- level</p><p>Period: Fall of 2005</p><p>University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University</p><p>Purpose/Aim: The aim of this essay is to provide an description of how daily newspaper, TV, radio and the Internet are used by young adults in order to contribute to Lennar Weibulls model “a typology of the Swedish mediasystem from an audience perspectiv”.</p><p>Method/Material: The method of gathering of empirical material has been conducted by interviewing eight people of how they use daily newspapers, TV, radio and The internet to inform themselves of the daily news. The empirical material has then been analysed by applying a two step method, of first making a summary of the interviews and secondly making a comparison with a model of Lennart Weibull “a typology of the Swedish mediasystem from an audience perspectiv” .</p><p>Main results:Two different types of ideal media users can be drawn from the empirical research, the “Investigator” and the “Updater”. The updater search for news to stay updated and relies on the Internet as main source of information. The Investigator is not satisfied with the Internet as a news media, the investigator search for news for an in debt understanding and find a daily newspaper more suitable. The difference between the media use of the investigator and the updater leads to the conclusion that Internet is not used as news media of in debt information like the daily newspaper, to be correctly understood of how it is used by young adults it should be accepted as a basic news media of providing fast and easy updated news.</p><p>Keywords: information media, news media,, daily newspaper, TV, radio the Internet, young adults, media use,</p>

Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this essay is to analyze and discuss how MTV is affected by the development that takes place on the world’s media market. The aim is also to see how MTV’s target group’s image of the channel can give guidelines in how MTV should act in this new media era. Material/method: I have examined the development on the media market and then created a model consisting of relevant factors that could affect a TV-channel today. Those factors and the two factors image and profile are then applied on MTV. I have done three interviews with people who work at MTV Networks Nordic and one interview with a person who used to work there. I also arranged three focus groups with members within the target group of MTV (15-24 year). The questions for all of the interviews were based on theories relevant to this study. Main results: The results from the interviews and the focus groups showed that the profile and the image of MTV did not agree completely. An example of that is that the staffs of MTV saw the channel as a youth channel while the target group saw it as a music channel. MTV seems to go from being a niche channel to becoming a broader channel, a move that is quite unusual on today’s media market where niche marketing is the main strategy for TV-channels. People within the target group 15-24 uses the Internet more than TV an average day, and the younger members of my focus groups used the Internet more than the older ones. None of the members of the target group watched TV on their mobile phone but they assumed that younger kids would use it a lot in the future. All agreed upon that MTV was a suitable channel for mobile-TV.

Abstract Title: The “Investigator” and the “Updater” – new patterns of news use among young adults. Number of pages: 48 Author: Anna Strinnholm Tutor: Amelie Hössjer Course: Media and Communications, D- level Period: Fall of 2005 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University Purpose/Aim: The aim of this essay is to provide an description of how daily newspaper, TV, radio and the Internet are used by young adults in order to contribute to Lennar Weibulls model “a typology of the Swedish mediasystem from an audience perspectiv”. Method/Material: The method of gathering of empirical material has been conducted by interviewing eight people of how they use daily newspapers, TV, radio and The internet to inform themselves of the daily news. The empirical material has then been analysed by applying a two step method, of first making a summary of the interviews and secondly making a comparison with a model of Lennart Weibull “a typology of the Swedish mediasystem from an audience perspectiv” . Main results:Two different types of ideal media users can be drawn from the empirical research, the “Investigator” and the “Updater”. The updater search for news to stay updated and relies on the Internet as main source of information. The Investigator is not satisfied with the Internet as a news media, the investigator search for news for an in debt understanding and find a daily newspaper more suitable. The difference between the media use of the investigator and the updater leads to the conclusion that Internet is not used as news media of in debt information like the daily newspaper, to be correctly understood of how it is used by young adults it should be accepted as a basic news media of providing fast and easy updated news. Keywords: information media, news media,, daily newspaper, TV, radio the Internet, young adults, media use,

This dissertation seeks to improve our understanding of the process by which emotions enable citizens to learn about public affairs and engage in political activities during electoral campaigns. It advances a theoretical model that incorporates the dynamics of emotions, various forms of media use, interpersonal communication and political involvement. This affective citizen communication model integrates into a single framework the insights of affective intelligence theory (Marcus, Neuman, & MacKuen, 2000) and the work on communication mediation (McLeod et al., 1999, 2001) and its two iterations, cognitive mediation (Eveland, 2001) and citizen communication mediation (Cho et al., 2009; Shah et al., 2005, 2007). More specifically, it suggests that the effects of emotions triggered by political candidates (e.g., enthusiasm, anxiety, anger) on knowledge of the candidates’ stands on issues and on political participation are largely mediated by communication variables, including news media use, political discussion and debate viewing. By positing emotions as an antecedent of both mediated and interpersonal communication, the study extends current research based on affective intelligence theory. At the same time, the study adds emotions to communication mediation processes, which to date have been studied from a mostly cognitive perspective. To test the relationships between the variables identified in the affective citizen communication model, I rely on panel survey data collected for the 2008 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections by the American National Election Studies (ANES) and the National Annenberg Election Surveys (NAES), respectively. Two types of structural equation models are tested, cross sectional (to relate individual differences) and auto-regressive (to relate aggregate change across waves). Results suggest that positive emotions spark media use, whereas negative emotions spark political discussions, and both types of communication behavior influence issue knowledge and participation in campaign activities. Furthermore, the theorized structure is found to perform better than an alternative structure where communication variables cause positive and negative emotions. Thus, results provide strong support for the proposed affective citizen communication model. Refinements to the proposed model, connections with existing theories of political communication, such as agenda setting and partisan selective exposure, and directions for future research are also discussed. / text

在過去幾十年間，科學素養備受國內外學者重視，提升國民的科學素養程度不但被多國政府納入國家重點施政方針，相關調查與具體的教育措施亦成為研究者的關注焦點。大眾媒體向來是一般閱聽眾接觸科學資訊最常見的管道，因此如何讓科學知識能普及於一般民眾，甚至讓非專業人士也能對科學有正面評價並支持科學發展，便成為科學工作者傳遞科學資訊的挑戰。針對民眾科學知識與科學素養的相關研究，近十多年來在國外幾乎不曾間斷。然若回顧台灣本地文獻，大規模的科學素養或科學態度調查則較少出現。為彌補此一研究缺漏，本文擬以全台灣地區的大學在學生為調查對象，透過科學問卷設計，進行全國大學生科學素養與科學態度調查，同時將媒介使用與人口變項納入分析之中，以期了解彼此間的相互關係。 本研究透過隨機抽樣，抽出十一所分別位於台灣北、中、南、東的大專院校，於民國九十八年六月間進行問卷調查與回收，最後共取得1838份有效問卷，以統計軟體SPSS中的t檢定與階層迴歸分析後，研究發現如下：一、在新聞媒介使用上，大學生接觸網路頻率最高，電視次之，報紙與雜誌殿後；二、在科學素養方面，男性、就讀理工組相關科系、念公立大學、在班上成績較佳的學生，有較好的科學素養程度；科學態度與科學素養則無顯著相關；三、除了電視新聞與電視科學內容接觸外，其他種類的媒介使用對科學素養並無顯著影響；四、本研究發現，收看電視的頻率越高，科學素養越低落，且無論新聞或科學節目皆然；五、在控制住所有可能的影響因素後，影響科學素養最有力的變項分別為「公私立大學」、「就讀科系」與「班上成績」，顯示學校教育與過去學習背景是影響台灣地區大學生科學素養程度的最主要因素。 / Over the past decades, a growing number of studies have focused on public scientific literacy and tried to examine it. Public familiarity with basic scientific concepts and principles has been proposed as essential for effective decision-making both in personal daily life and national policy. Quantitative and qualitative studies of the public understanding of science have been conducted in many countries. Those studies have provided valuable insights into to what extent that citizens may have understood important scientific concepts, and furthermore, into the ways in which they seek and use scientific knowledge and how they think about science. There were only few science literacy related studies conducted in Taiwan. Up till now, no representative and population-based study in Taiwan. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to estimate the level of scientific literacy of college students in Taiwan and to explore the relationships between media use, scientific literacy and the attitude toward science. This study conducted a national survey among college students in Taiwan. One thousand eight-hundred and thirty-eight students participating in this study from June 1, 2009 to June 22, 2009. As expected, male, public university students, majoring science and technology, with better academic performance, will have higher levels of scientific literacy. Scientific literacy is negative related to the frequency of watching television, whether news or scientific programs, which suggests TV programs in Taiwan do not provide quality science contents to audiences. After controlling for a range of socio-demographic variables, it is found that public or private university, major, and academic performance have significant effects on college students’ scientific literacy. Findings indicated that educational variables affect the level of scientific literacy of Taiwanese undergraduates the most.

The purpose of this study is to analyze women’s use of digital media in their everyday life and how they reflect on their use. We chose this field of studies because of our interest in the differences and similarities within generational media usage. The study uses two qualitative research methods to receive the empirical material, in form of observations and interviews of twelve women of two different generations. We used theories by Marshall McLuhan and Mark Deuze to analyze the empirical material where we worked inductively to find three themes within the material. The main results in this study display that the use of digital media is not completely reliant on which generation one is born into. Rather, what shows in the results are that the use of digital media is individual and depends on the person. Although, the respondents’ reflections on their digital media use differs between the two generations. Further, there are both similarities and differences within the generations, as well as between them. This study has social relevance and it contributes with an understanding of the media use of different generations of women.

This study applies bereavement and media use theoretical perspectives to examine how survivors use media to cope with spousal loss during the first two years. Specifically, this study explores whether survivors’ television use is associated with grief intensity. Potential associations between television use and grief intensity are explored using an online survey. A media use for coping scale is developed. The relationship between television oscillation (i.e., equal use of television for respite, and to cope with primary and secondary stressors) and grief intensity is also explored, and ten specific moderators of this relationship are examined: recency of loss, type of loss, social support, family proximity and contact, marital relationship quality, economic stability, pre-existing physical and mental health issues, and change in television use. Results were collected from 356 spousal survivors and indicate that television use to cope is associated with grief intensity. Survivors that report high television use in general are using more television for relaxation, companionship, acceptance, positive reinterpretation and growth, and emotional and instrumental support. The most dramatic effects are observed with television use for relaxation and companionship, and the smallest effects with television use for emotional and instrumental support. However, there was no association between television use for respite, or to cope with primary and secondary stressors and grief intensity. Results support the value of social support, family contact at the time of loss, fewer physical health issues, and decreasing general television use in promoting more positive bereavement outcomes. Results support television oscillation as a predictor of grief intensity, but only under certain circumstances. Four of the models show significant moderator effects between television oscillation and grief intensity: social support at the time of loss, family contact at the time of loss, pre-existing physical health issues, and change in television use since the loss. When survivors have less social support at the time of loss, television oscillation is associated with less grief intensity as predicted. However, when survivors have more social support, television oscillation is marginally associated with more grief intensity. Likewise, when survivors have less family contact, television oscillation is associated with less grief intensity as predicted. Conversely, when survivors have more family contact, television oscillation is associated with more grief intensity. When survivors have more pre-existing physical health issues, television oscillation is not associated with grief intensity as predicted. For survivors with fewer pre-existing physical health issues, television oscillation is associated with less grief intensity. When survivors decrease television use by approximately one hour, television oscillation is marginally associated with less grief intensity. On the other hand, when survivors increase television use, television oscillation is not associated with grief intensity. Current general television use was a highly significant control variable in all moderator analyses indicating more television use to cope is associated with more grief intensity. Recency, type of loss, marital relationship quality, family proximity, economic stability, and pre-existing mental health issues did not significantly moderate the relationship between television oscillation and grief intensity. This study extends previous work by merging the bereavement and media use literatures, and in the development of a media use for coping scale. Moreover, it provides important empirical evidence on theoretical models about bereavement. This expands the potential for discussions about the association of individual vulnerabilities with more positive bereavement outcomes.

Background: Social media (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter) as communication channels have great potential to deliver Human papillomavirus self‐test (HPVST) intervention to medically underserved women (MUW) such as women of low income. However, little is known about MUW’s willingness to participate in HPVST intervention delivered through social media. We evaluated factors that contribute to MUW’s intention to participate in the social media‐related intervention for HPVST. Methods: A 21‐item survey was administered among women receiving food from a local food pantry in a U.S. southern state. Independent variables were social media usage facilitators (including confidentiality, social support, cost, and convenience), and barriers (including misinformation, time‐consuming, inefficient, and privacy concerns). Dependent variables included the likelihood of participating in social‐driven intervention for HPVST. Both variables were measured on a 5‐point scale. We used multinomial logistic regression to analyze the data. Results: A total of 254 women (mean age 48.9 ± 10.7 years) comprising Whites (40%), Hispanics (29%), Blacks (27%), and Other (4%) participated in the study. We found that over 44% of the women were overdue for their pap smears for the past three years, 12% had never had a pap smear, and 34% were not sure if they had had a pap smear. Over 82% reported frequent social media (e.g., Facebook) usage, and 52% reported willingness to participate in social media‐driven intervention for HPVST. Women who reported that social media provide privacy (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) = 6.23, 95% CI: 3.56, 10.92), provide social support (AOR = 7.18, 95% CI: 4.03, 12.80), are less costly (AOR = 6.71, 95% CI: 3.80, 11.85), and are convenient (AOR = 6.17, 95% CI: 3.49, 10.92) had significantly increased odds of participating in social media intervention for HPVST. Conclusions: The findings underscore that the majority of the MUW are overdue for cervical cancer screening, regularly use social media, and are willing to participate in social media‐driven intervention. Social media could be used to promote HPV self‐testing among MUW.