This thesis describes my explorations and reflections regarding the design of online social interaction for and with older people. In 2008 when I started my doctoral investigation only a third of people over 65 years in the UK were using the Internet. This number has now increased to half of the population of 65-75 year-olds being connected to the Internet. From 2000 onwards EU wide directives increasingly encouraged research in the development of online technologies to manage the needs of an ageing population in the EU. Alongside health-related risks, the issue of social isolation is of particular interest to be tackled, considering there is a rapid development of new forms of communication and interaction media based on online technologies that could help in maintaining contact between people. A beneficial design strategy is to involve older people in the design process to ensure that technological developments are welcomed and actually used. However, engaging older people, who are not necessarily familiar with digital technologies, is not without challenges for the design researcher. My research focuses both on design practice (the development of artefacts) and the design process for online social interaction involving older people. The thesis describes practice-led research, for which I built the Teletalker (TT) and Telewalker (TW) systems as prototypes for experimentation and design research interventions. The TT can be described as a simple TV like online audio-video presence system connecting two locations. The TW is based on the same concept has been built specifically for vulnerable older people living in a care home. The work described involves embodied real-world interventions with contemporary approaches to designing with people. In particular I explore the delicate nature of the researcher/participant relationship. The research is reported as four sequential journeys. The first design journey started from a user-centred iterative design perspective and resulted in the construction of a wireframe for a website for older users. The second journey focused on building the TT and investigated its use in the real world by people with varied computer experience. The third journey involved designing the TW system specifically for elderly people in a care home. The fourth journey employed a co-design approach, with invited stakeholders, to reflect on the physical artefacts, discuss narratives of the previous design journeys and to co-create new online social technologies for the future. In summary, my PhD thesis contributes to design theory by providing: a reflected rationale for the choices of design approaches, documented examples of design research for social interaction and a novel approach to research with older people (the extended showroom). It further offers insights into people's online social interaction and proposes guidelines for conducting empirical research with older and vulnerable older people.

Existing research into cyberbullying has tended to utilise surveys in order to understand the extent to which cyberbullying is experienced by young people in society. However, there has been little homogeneity between researchers when attempting to define cyberbullying and consequently there is disparity in how it has been operationalised. As well as this, recycling of the term ‘bullying’ brings with it certain presumptions and qualifications which may not be apt for social interactions in the new and ever evolving virtual world. Furthermore, it implicitly assumes that cyberbullying will bother young people, whilst simultaneously failing to acknowledge the situations which may bother young people but which do not constitute cyberbullying. In the present study the word ‘cyberbullying’ was thus omitted from use with participants in an attempt to circumvent the ‘trouble’ inherent with the term. The aim of this study was to gain an understanding of what bothers young people when on Facebook. A research methodology was sought which minimised the potential for researcher bias and maximised the opportunity for young people to give their personal account. Accordingly, Q methodology was employed to explore how 41 young people ranked 54 statements depicting hypothetical problem scenarios on Facebook. Participants sorted the statements according to personal significance from most agree (would bother) to most disagree (would not bother). The overall configuration of statements was subjected to factor analysis, from which a four factor solution was identified; ‘I want to protect others’; ‘I am worried about the dangers on Facebook’; ‘I know who I am and what I’m doing’; and ‘I don’t want any trouble’. The emergent social viewpoints were discussed further with four young people and an understanding was gained of what they perceived of Facebook; what action they would take if they experienced something negative on Facebook and what role they felt school should play in such situations. The findings were discussed in relation to existing literature, and the potential roles of schools and Educational Psychologists were considered. Limitations were acknowledged and recommendations for further research suggested.

This PhD research adopts an interdisciplinary approach to answer the following research question: to what extent could Members of the European Parliament incorporate social networking tools (SNT) as part of their communication resources in engaging with other actors when carrying out their work as legislators? The methodological framework chosen to conduct this study is exploratory and combines two qualitative methods: elite interviews and observation. Interviews with MEPs and their staff aimed to explore MEPs’ understanding of SNT use, their motivations and their perceived benefits of using SNT when carrying out their work as legislators. Interviews with officials of the EP and members of the European civil society were purposely designed as validating interviews. In total, 29 interviews were conducted in 2011-2012. Observation of MEPs’ communication patterns during parliamentary weeks has allowed me to assess, on the one hand their communication patterns from an organisational perspective and on the other hand the potential for introducing new communicative tools into MEPs’ communicative practices. Observation was conducted with two MEPs and their staff during two weeks each. The theoretical framework of this study relies strongly upon communication network theories and organisational studies that explore the adoption of SNT in the workplace. Based on a grounded theory approach, this exploratory study suggests an emergent model of use of SNT for MEPs in carrying out their legislative work, based on MEPs’ motivations and perceived benefits of using these tools. Findings suggest that there are four domains in which MEPs could use SNT in their legislative functions: to democratise lobbying practices in the EP, to raise their awareness of public opinion, to reshape their relationship with journalists and finally to coordinate their actions as representatives with the European civil society’s. Thus, this study explores the adoption of SNT by elected members of the European Parliament by focusing on their understanding of their use of SNT when carrying out their role as legislators.

Technology-supported online social networks have grown dramatically in recent years. Limited success has been achieved in economically developing them so that users make purchases through them. However these are largely ineffective as they are based on ‘targeting’ users with advertising in an attempt to stimulate them towards purchasing. The aim of the research was to explore how these networks could be economically developed in ways which users would welcome. The existing literature had gaps on how the intentions and behaviours of online social network users could be better understood in this context. Using a qualitative methodology semi-structured interviews were carried out with online social networks users. The research draws on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991-2006). It also explores how some aspects of the Social Network Theory (SNT) model developed by the researcher in Document 2, as well as some key constructs of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis et al., 1991; Venkatesh and Davis, 1994), may impact on TPB in this context. The findings arising from thematic analysis of the interviews led to proposing contextualised factors which could affect the key constructs in the TPB. Factors affecting network user attitudinal beliefs and evaluations in this context included Ease of Use, Utility and belief in the network’s capacity to deliver benefits. Factors affecting normative beliefs and motivation to comply included information-sharing, resistance to ‘assumed profiles’, self-setting of norms, and attitudes to personal data. Factors affecting control beliefs and facilitation included ‘Ultimate Control’, ‘Program Control’, 2-way information/control exchange dynamics, emotional bonding and user self-modification of behaviour. These led to a conceptual framework modifying TPB in the context of purchasing by network users. As well as contributing to theory there are some contributions to professional practice, including insight to providing more opportunities for enhancing user engagement and perception of control, ‘one-click’ access to ‘in-network’ vendors, An exploration of user intention and behaviour in the context of the economic development of technology-supported online social networks and facilities for users to express their interests in information on the goods and services which they would welcome. A number of proposals are also presented for extending the research in the future.

This thesis presents SAESNEG, a System for the Automated Extraction of Social Network Event Groups; a pipeline for the aggregation of the personal social media footprint, and its partitioning into events, the event clustering problem. SAESNEG facilitates a reminiscence-friendly user experience, where the user is able to navigate their social media footprint. A range of socio-technical issues are explored: the challenges to reminiscence, lifelogging, ownership, and digital death. Whilst previous systems have focused on the organisation of a single type of data, such as photos or Tweets respectively; SAESNEG handles a variety of types of social network documents found in a typical footprint (e.g. photos, Tweets, check-ins), with a variety of image, text and other metadata di erently heterogeneous data; adapted to sparse, private events typical of the personal social media footprint. Phase A extracts information, focusing on natural language processing; new techniques are developed; including a novel distributed approach to handling temporal expressions, and a parser for social events (such as birthdays). Information is also extracted from image and metadata, the resultant annotations feeding the subsequent event clustering. Phase B performs event clustering through the application of a number of pairwise similarity strategies a mixture of new and existing algorithms. Clustering itself is achieved by combining machine-learning with correlation clustering. The main contributions of this thesis are the identi cation of the technical research task (and the associated social need), the development of novel algorithms and approaches, and the integration of these with existing algorithms to form the pipeline. Results demonstrate SAESNEG's capability to perform event clustering on a di erently heterogeneous dataset, enabling users to achieve lifelogging in the context of their existing social media networks.

This thesis examines the everyday activities of Indian youth on the MTV India Facebook fan page. The two-phase research design included a period of participant observation, combined with conducting online interviews, and a visit to New Delhi, India to conduct offline interviews. The thesis analyzes several aspects of identity performance (e.g. online identity performance, relation between online and offline identity, ideal presentation of an online identity) in relation to Goffman’s (1959) presentation of self in everyday life, and argues that the MTV India Facebook fan page has become a site for identity performance. Since such identity performance is bounded by participants’ everyday activities, the fan page can also be identified as a particular ‘place’. I use Tuan’s (1977) idea of ‘place-making’ and illustrate how the MTV India Facebook fan page has become a meaningful and familiar ‘place’ overtime through performance of routine activities and everyday practices (Seamon, 1979). These activities can be identified as articulating ‘Youngistan’ (voice of Indian youth) and performing Indian-ness, suggesting that fans have appropriated the fan page for performing specific activities that are particular to them. In addition, the thesis takes the local-global character into consideration and argues that local-global combine together to form separate, unique cultures such as MTV India, which safeguard ‘locality’ within the global product and help in ‘place-making’ activities.

Analysis of online social network traffic can identify a cascade as it flows through a community but, often, the reasons for its initiation are tacit. Commercial measures of online influence focus on the consequences of influence not the causes and have been criticized as lacking efficacy. This research uses social capital and personal influence theories to investigate the characteristics and behaviours that allow certain network nodes to be able to cascade ideas (or memes) through networks. The relationships between structural, relational and cognitive sources of social capital and two distinct dimensions of influence are investigated using: interviews with experts in the field, focus groups of social network users and 1,970 respondents from three large-scale online communities. Data has been analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) and allows the researcher to develop robust conclusions on the antecedents to influence. These help to explain recent contradictory findings by different researchers in studies using Social Network Analysis (SNA). The dimensions of influence measured are: respondents’ intention to propagate the message and; the extent to which the message has affected their perception of the subject. The model of influence that leads to both dimensions is strikingly similar; presenting strong support for the notion that contagion-based cascades through networks are predictors of perception change. The paper proposes a bridge between the theories of social capital and personal influence and this is considered an original contribution to these well-established theories. Techniques are suggested which can help organisations to identify opinion-leaders and, if required, subvert or redirect the nature of their influence. Other applications are considered in the fields of: Innovation (identification of lead users); Virtual Organisations (engaging with informal leaders and influencers in networks); Cyber- Defence (identification and subversion of online radicalisation).

A purposeful sample of 21 school leaders from the UK and abroad were interviewed about their use of Twitter. The Twitter timelines of these respondents were also analysed. The study was framed around four research questions designed to interrogate the issues surrounding senior leaders' use of Twitter. The data collected pointed towards the growing importance of Twitter as a forum for discussion about a whole gamut of issues related to education and leadership. The research uncovered important ways in which Twitter is being used to supplement, or in some cases replace, traditional modes of professional development. This is seen to have implications for the way leaders' careers evolve over time. A revised model of leadership career progression is proposed. The revised model provides a conceptual framework for charting social media engagement amongst leaders as their careers progress. By systematising social media engagement in this way, the study makes an important contribution to the corpus of knowledge that already exists in relation to social media use in educational settings. Practical implications include, amongst other things, suggested changes to the professional development of leaders and a call to greater awareness of social media amongst leaders themselves.

Collaborative knowledge-building (CKB) in online social networking settings is an area of concern among educators and researchers alike. The focus however, seems to be on how social networking sites mediate the process of CKB while neglecting the role of design in making such knowledge-building and collaboration a sustainable activity. The relative lack of attention to design, points to the need for methods to guide the development of CKB environments. Additionally, despite the increasing use and benefits of informal online learning approaches for professional development, many Caribbean educators are still not making effective use of this approach to their professional development. This thesis addresses these issues and contributes to work in the field of learning design in the social networking setting. This thesis therefore draws on a three-year designing for learning action research exploration in the Caribbean Educators Network (CEN) which aimed to establish possible benefits from a framework-driven approach, given that the development of informal online social networking environments are not traditionally driven by any particular theoretical or design frameworks. Using the research findings, guided by activity theory (Leont'ev 1978; Engeström 1987), group cognition (Stahl 2005; Stahl 2006), community of inquiry (Garrison et al 2001), I advanced a conceptualisation of a framework to mediate collaborative knowledge-building in the CEN. The framework is a focus on processes (what is done) and presences (the environment or condition) and is expressed along 4 themes: community presence, cognitive presence, moderating presence and 'artefactization' presence. In addition to the development of the mediating framework, the exploration also resulted in a meaningful experience and approach that revealed design for learning in the informal online social networking settings as a dynamic, living, messy, critical-reflective and participatory process of meaning-making.

This thesis broadly addresses the issue of identity management and performance online. The social networking site Facebook has been used as the primary research site due to its dominance on the World Wide Web and in individuals’ lives. Specifically this thesis seeks to understand how people negotiate their identity in a social space where a multitude of different friendship groups and associations are simultaneously present. The thesis makes extensive use of the premise originally made by Erving Goffman, that we give particular performances of self to particular groups of people and social situations, and extends this to our more intimate and interpersonal relationships. Further, an exploration is undertaken of the relevancy of early Internet theories concerning the fragmented self, and hypothesises that although these arguments are not redundant the opposite of this is equally plausible. This is to say that instead of identities becoming segregated, the design and conditions of Facebook allows its users to present what is termed here as a recentred self: a self or identity that is an amalgamation of all relevant identities in order to satisfy a level of recognition in as many social groups and associations as possible. Through an extensive observational online ethnography and a number of online interviews, the data revealed a complex relationship between the individual, their presentation of self, their relations with others and offline community integration. Using three case studies (Goth, eating disorders and fetishism) it emerged that depending on the perceived taboo or deviant nature of the specific identity, the expected reactions of others and the integration of the identity in the offline individuals engage with highly variant forms of identity management. Using these different forms of management, that include the fragmented self, the re-centred self and combinations of multiple strategies, individuals negotiate their way through a myriad of identities and audiences. Through successful identity management individuals aim to be able to protect themselves against potential repercussions from revelation of a problematic identity, and in turn maintain a comfortable level of recognition.