Reading affects everything we do in life. Sometimes it is difficult to determine how many people have a reading disability, and what tools can be used to overcome it. The main aim of this thesis is to gain insight into how and if audio recordings (audiobooks, talking books or mobile apps for reading) are used in elementary schools by teachers as a tool for pupils with reading disabilities. A quantitative approach was adopted for data collection in the form of a self-administered online survey created by using Sunet Survey software. The survey, with 15 questions in Croatian, was sent to 63 elementary schools in Primorje and Gorski Kotar County in Croatia. The sampling frame consisted of 541 elementary school teachers teaching first through fourth grades. 98 responded to the survey. To support the results, 2 theories were used. The cognitive authority theory to support the notion that teachers play a large role in pupils' relationship with reading, and the cognitive load theory to support the notion that assistive technology can help pupils with reading disabilities. The results elucidate that our sample consists of 96.6% female respondents who are between 45 and 54 years old, have 10 to 20 years of professional experience, and mainly teach first grade. 75% of the respondents currently have and 89.8% used to have pupils with reading disabilities in their class. Although audiobooks are not the most popular tool in Croatia, 63.6% of respondents recognize them as a tool they use. The results also show that schools and school libraries are not sufficiently equipped with tools to help pupils with reading disabilities. Most involvement depends on the individual will of teachers.

This qualitative case study examines technology-facilitated gender-based violence in relation to network hospitality platform Couchsurfing.com. Motivated by experiences of many women, including my own, and an identified research gap in the academia on the topic, the research seeks to understand how Couchsurfing.com facilitates gender-based violence, with a specific focus on women. The present research is based on a single, explanatory case study methodology, focused on the thematic of analysis of the podcast “Verified”, concerning the case of Italian Couchsurfer and policeman Dino Maglio, who systematically drugged and sexually assaulted his Couchsurfing guests. Key findings highlight how Couchsurfing enabled and perpetuated gender-based violence, by not preventing the creation of new profiles and possible retaliation against negative references, and most importantly, by never admitting to any responsibility. While this violence was facilitated by Couchsurfing.com, other hegemonic social structures and institutions were found in the study to be further perpetuating this violence, in particular the police and the judiciary system. While acknowledging the limitation of a single case study, this master’s thesis contributes to an ever-increasing body of literature on technology-facilitated gender-based violence by shedding light on the different dynamics at play in an online-to-offline Couchsurfing exchange.

This dissertation investigates meaning-making in children's joint-reading transactions with literary apps. The analysis of meaning-making focuses on embodiment as a central aspect of literary app's texts and their reading and on children's negotiation of agency in the act of joint-reading. Meaning-making is understood through a multimodal social semiotics perspective, which considers that meaning is realised in the dynamic transaction between reader, text and social context. Therefore, the dissertation integrates the analysis of the apps and of the children's responses to capture the dynamics of meaning-making in such transactions. Case studies were conducted with six families, who read the apps The Monster at the End of This Book (Stone & Smollin, 2011) and Little Red Riding Hood (Nosy Crow, 2013) in an English public library. The central method of data collection involved video-recorded observations of parent-child joint-reading events, complemented by graphic elicitation, informal interviews and a questionnaire. The video data was analysed through multimodal methods. The findings indicate that the participant readers used their bodies not only as a material point of contact and activation of the interactive features but also as a resource for meaning-making in their transactions with the apps. The reader's body was essential in their engagement with the material and interactive affordances of the apps, in reader's expressions of their responses, and in the sharing of the reading experience with the parents. The body of the reader, through spontaneous and interactive gestures, is a mode of communication in the multimodal ecologies of both the text and the reader's responses. Furthermore, the child readers constantly negotiated their agency within the constraints posed by the text, which include the narrative itself and its interactive features, and those posed by the joint-reading situation. The bodies of the readers played an essential role in this dual negotiation of agency. Children's agency was scripted, that is, the readers exerted their agency within the limitations of a script. The script, however, allowed readers to improvise, and their performances also involved resistance to the script through playful subversion. In the joint-reading event, children's agency was foregrounded, positioning the children as protagonist readers, who performed most of the interactions and lived the aesthetic experience of the text fully, to the expense of their parents, who mostly participated as supporting readers, transferring their agency to the children through scaffolding.

This diploma thesis focuses on the motivations of users to create an account within the location- based mobile dating applications. The work is processed by statistical analysis of already published studies dealing with the same or similar topics. The main target of this paper is to calculate the effect size of individual motives in relation to the sex of the respondents. The diploma thesis starts with description of the history of online dating, specific mobile applications included in my meta-analysis, user behavior in individual stages of using these applications (profile settings, selection of other profiles, communication and its development in time), followed by the methodological part where the meta-analysis itself is desribed, the process of its creation and its weak and strong aspects. In the following chapter the results of the meta-analysis and their interpretation are presented as well as self-reflection of this paper along the recommendations for future researches. Analysis helped to reveal the differences between the sexes and also helped to synthesize the acquired studies dealing with this topis. The most notable influence of gender can be seen in the motivation of casual sex, to a lesser extent in the motivation to seek love, friends, the use of the application because of the ease...

Diese Dissertation untersucht das Nutzerverhalten und die Einstellungen von Smartphone- und App-BenutzerInnen und welche Rolle die Kultur in Bezug auf mobile Privatsphäre spielt. Die zentrale Forschungsfrage lautet: Gibt es Unterschiede im Verhalten und in der Einstellung von amerikanischen und deutschen Studenten der Bibliotheks- und Informationswissenschaften in Bezug auf die mobile Privatsphäre? Im Mittelpunkt dieser Dissertation steht die ethnographische Forschung in einem interkulturellen Umfeld. Das Forschungsdesign besteht aus halb-strukturierten Interviews, gekoppelt mit Experimenten und Beobachtungen der Teilnehmer über die Nutzung mobiler Technologien. Die Feldforschung 1 wurde (in persona) an zwei verschiedenen Orten durchgeführt: an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Deutschland, und an der Rutgers State University of New Jersey, USA. Die Feldforschung 2 wurde (digital) über eine Online-Videokonferenzplattform durchgeführt. Im Gegensatz dazu, was die Autorin dieser vorliegenden Studie prognostizierte, kommt es zu folgenden Ergebnissen in dieser Studie: Bei den Probanden können fast keine kulturellen Unterschiede im Verhalten und in der Einstellung zur mobilen Privatsphäre festgestellt werden. Stattdessen werden in Bezug auf die mobile Privatsphäre ähnliche Einstellungen unter den Studienteilnehmenden festgestellt. Zum einen die Selbstzufriedenheit, zum anderen das Gefühl der Hilfslosigkeit und schließlich Pragmatismus scheinen, deutsche und amerikanische Studierende gleichermaßen zu beeinflussen. Das Ergebnis wurde aber ursprünglich nicht so erwartet, da eigentlich zu Beginn der Studie davon ausgegangen wurde, dass der unterschiedliche Kenntnis- und Bewusstseinsstand zur mobilen Privatsphäre in beiden Kulturen zu unterschiedlichen Reaktionen führen würde. Dennoch bieten die Ergebnisse dieser Studie sicher nachfolgenden WissenschaftlerInnen interessante Impulse und eine gute Ausgangsbasis für weitere Studien. / This dissertation examines the role of culture, mobile privacy, apps, and user behavior and attitude. The core research question is: Are there differences in the mobile privacy behaviors and attitudes of American and German library and information science students? This dissertation uses ethnography as its research methodology since culture is at the heart of ethnography. Furthermore, ethnographers try to make sense of behavior, customs, and attitudes of the culture they observe and research. This ethnographer aims to portray a thick narrative and transforms participants' mobile privacy attitude and behavior into a rich account. The research design is comprised of semi-structured interviews, coupled with experiments and participant observations about mobile technology use. Fieldwork 1 was conducted in two different sites: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany, and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, USA. Fieldwork 2 was conducted via an online video conferencing platform. Contrary to what this researcher predicted, the findings have revealed that there are nearly no cultural differences in mobile privacy behavior and attitude. Similar attitudes, such as mobile privacy complacency, mobile privacy learned-helplessness, and mobile privacy pragmatism, seem to impact German and American students equally. The findings provide support for further research recommendations, and in conclusion, this researcher highlights three contributions this study makes to the scholarly literature.

The overall security posture of information systems (IS) depends on the behaviors of the IS users. Several studies have shown that users are the greatest vulnerability to IS security. The proliferation of smartphones is introducing an entirely new set of risks, threats, and vulnerabilities. Smartphone devices amplify this data exposure problem by enabling instantaneous transmission and storage of personally identifiable information (PII) by smartphone users, which is becoming a major security risk. Moreover, companies are also capitalizing on the availability and powerful computing capabilities of these smartphone devices and developing a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) program, which makes companies susceptible to divulgence of organizational proprietary information and sensitive customer information. In addition to users being the greatest risk to IS security, several studies have shown that many people do not implement even the most basic security countermeasures on their smartphones. The lack of security countermeasures implementation, risky user behavior, and the amount of sensitive information stored and transmitted on smartphones is becoming an ever-increasing problem. A literature review revealed a significant gap in literature pertaining to smartphone security. This study identified six socio-cognitive factors from the domain of traditional computer security which have shown to have an impact on user security behaviors and practices. The six factors this study identified and analyzed are mobile information security self-efficacy, institutional trust, party trust, and awareness of smartphone risks, threats, and vulnerabilities and their influence on smartphone security practices and behaviors. The analysis done in this research was confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) – structural equation modeling (SEM). The goal of this study was to cross-validate previously validated factors within the context of traditional computer security and assess their applicability in the context of smartphone security. Additionally, this study assessed the influential significance of these factors on the security behaviors and practices of smartphone users. This study used a Web-based survey and was distributed to approximately 539 users through Facebook® and LinkedIn® social media outlets which resulted in 275 responses for a 51% response rate. After pre-analysis data screening was completed, there were a total of 19 responses that had to be eliminated due to unengaged responses and outliers leaving 256 responses left to analyze. The results of the analysis found that vulnerability awareness, threat awareness, and risk awareness are interrelated to one another which all in turn had significance in predicting self-efficacy, security practices, and behaviors. This intricate relationship revealed in this study indicates that a user has to have an increased awareness in all three categories of awareness before they can fully understand how to protect themselves. Having an increased awareness in one category does not impact the overall security posture of the user and that risk, threat, and vulnerability awareness all work together. Another interesting find was that as risk awareness increased the less the smartphone users protected themselves. This finding warrants additional research to investigate why the user is more averse to risk, and willing to accept the risk, despite their increased awareness. Finally, institutional trust and party trust was found not to have any significance on any of the factors. These findings should give smartphone users and organizations insight into specific areas to focus on in minimizing inappropriate security behaviors and practices of smartphone users. More specifically, users and organizations need to focus on educating users on all three factors of threats, risks, and vulnerabilities in order for there to have any impact on increasing self-efficacy and reducing inappropriate security behaviors and practices.

本研究重點欲探討時下人人皆有的心理狀態「寂寞感」、「交友軟體的使用動機」與「自我揭露」行為之間的關係、而「交友軟體品質特性」又如何調節影響「交友軟體使用動機」與「自我揭露」行為。本研究採取網路問卷調查的方式，對於交友App有使用經驗的使用者為主要調查對象，共計307有效問卷進行分析。本研究主要發現如下： 1.本研究的受試者以男性、年齡18-25歲、學歷以大專院校者為最多，感情狀況以未婚族群最多，但是還是有非單身甚至已婚交友用戶；使用交友軟體的時間大多兩年之內，平均下載2.66個交友App軟體，其中最常使用的交友App軟體為Beetalk。受試者平均每週上交友軟體的天數為5.07天，每週花費5.43小時。另外，高達94.1%的受試者曾經在交友App平台上與陌生人進一步用其他通訊軟體、社群媒體互動，並有88.9%的受試者曾約現實碰面。 2.寂寞感程度可顯著的正向預測交友軟體使用動機中的日常社交、社會逃避以及尋愛之三個構面。 3.寂寞感程度可顯著的正向預測自我揭露中的誠實度、數量以及正負向之三個構面。 4.關於交友軟體使用動機(日常社交、社會逃避、尋愛)與自我揭露(誠實度、數量、正負向)之間的關係：交友軟體使用動機中日常社交、社會逃避與尋愛之三個構面皆可顯著預測自我揭露中的誠實度：當日常社交和社會逃避動機越高時，自我揭露中的誠實度越高；但是當尋愛動機越高時，自我揭露中的誠實度越低。交友使用動機中日常社交和尋愛之二個構面皆可顯著預測自我揭露中的數量：當日常社交動機越高時，自我揭露中的數量越高；但當尋愛動機越高時，自我揭露中的數量越低。交友使用動機中日常社交之構面可顯著正向預測自我揭露中的正負向。 5.交友軟體品質特性(使用者介面、安全性、形象聲譽、會員素質、尋愛達成率)對交友軟體使用動機與自我揭露的調節效果中，僅只有尋愛達成率對交友軟體使用動機和自我揭露產生調節效果。 6.交友軟體使用動機中僅有日常社交之構面對於寂寞感程度與自我揭露有中介效果。 / The purpose of this study is to explore how “loneliness” which is widely prevalent throughout the society affects the motives of using online dating applications and the behavior of self-disclosure. Furthermore, how the quality of online dating apps operates in between the motives of using online dating apps and the behavior of self- disclosure. Online survey was conducted and 307 respondents completed the questionnaire. The research results are presented as follow: 1.Most of the respondents in the study are male, aged from 18 to 25, graduated from college and are currently single. Still, there are some of them in a relationship and even married. Subjects mostly have been used the dating apps less than 2 years, and averagely downloaded 2.66 dating apps. Furthermore, the most popular dating apps is Beetalk. Respondents use dating apps 5.07 days a week and 5.43 hours a week in average. Besides, there are 94.1% of the respondents have used other social media or social apps to communicate with other users they met in dating apps and 88.9% of the respondents have actually met up in real life. 2.Different degree of loneliness have statistically significant and positive predictable effect on the motives of using online dating apps including “Daily Social Needs”, “Escape to Virtual World”, and “Romance”. 3.Different degree of loneliness have statistically significant and positive predictable effect on the different aspects of self-disclosure including: Honesty, Quantity, and Positivity. 4.The motives of using online dating apps including “Daily Social Needs”, “Escape to Virtual World”, “Romance” have statistically significant and predictable effect on the honesty of self-disclosure. “Daily Social Needs” and “Romance” of motives have significant and predicable effect on the quantity of self-disclosure. Only “Daily social needs” have statistically significant and predictable effect on the positivity of self-disclosure. 5.Only the quality of “Love Achievement Rate” of online dating apps have operation effects in between the motives of using online dating apps and the behavior of self- disclosure. 6.Only “Daily social needs” of motives of using online dating apps have mediation effects between loneliness and the behavior of self disclosure.

This Master's degree thesis deals with a specific area of creative industries: development of mobile applications. The aim is to identify and understand the work routines of Czech iOS developers while considering the importance of design as one of the benchmarks of mobile application quality on the Apple App Store. I mainly focus on mapping work routines of selected developers and their thinking about design in the context of Apple devices and iOS platform, assuming that Apple establishes a high standard of visual and functional qualities. I am addressing an issue of application usability not only in terms of design of the user interface, but also its functioning and more aspects of application development within the ecosystem of Czech mobile app industry. The theoretical part of my thesis subjectively describes fundamental concepts from the mobile app development field and theories related to the topic. Empirical part of the study is based on qualitative interviews with 9 Czech mobile app developers and following thematic analysis. This study can serve as an interesting resource of understanding of the work of Czech mobile app developers, how they think about design and Apple as a platform or as a solid foundation for further quantitative investigation to confirm or revise my findings.

La thèse étudie les applications dites citoyennes pour mobiles et web qui sont développées en réponse aux problèmes publics variés et basées sur le principe de crowdsourcing. Elle s’intéresse à la fois à la conception de ces dispositifs, à leurs usages et aux façons dont ces outils transforment la communication des citoyens entre eux, et avec les pouvoirs publics. Elle explore les nouveaux formats d’innovation, comme les hackathons civiques, et interroge l’usage du code informatique en tant que nouvel instrument d’action collective.La thèse mobilise une méthodologie qui puise dans les répertoires des STS, de la sociologie des problèmes publics, de la science politique, des sciences de l’information et communication. Appuyée sur l’étude d'applications citoyennes en France et en Russie, elle pose différentes questions : comment traduit-on les problèmes publics en code informatique ; qu’est-ce que ces applications font et font faire ?; comment transforment-elles la participation citoyenne ?La recherche montre que les interfaces des applications façonnent et standardisent la participation en se basant sur les documents de référence : les lois, les réglementations normatives et techniques. Cependant, la standardisation a ses limites : se focalisant sur les moments de faille et des épreuves, telles que les tests, les mises à jour, le débogage des applications, l’enquête rend visibles les détournements et les bricolages mis en place par les usagers qui dépassent le cadrage par les interfaces et participent à la fois à la réécriture des applications et à la redéfinition des problèmes publics.La comparaison entre applications développées par les administrations publiques et projets portés par la société civile permet de distinguer deux façons de communiquer : les chaînes courtes et les chaînes longues. Sans les opposer, la thèse se place dans « l’entre-deux » et analyser les articulations, les agencements de ces réseaux socio-techniques. / The PhD dissertation studies new digital participative technologies called "civic apps", applications for mobile and web developed in response to a large scope of public problems and based on the principle of crowdsourcing. The research focuses on the conception of these tools, their usages and the way these tools transform the communication among citizens and between citizens and public administrations. It also explores new formats of civic tech innovation, such as civic hackathons, and question the usage of programming code as a new tool of collective action.The thesis calls upon the methodologies of sociology of science and technology, sociology of public problems, political science and science of information and communication. Based on a case-study of several civic apps in France and Russia, the inquiry adresses the following question: how does the translation of public problems into programming code occur ? And how do these applications transform civic participation?The research shows that the interfaces standardize and format the practices of participation, using documents such as laws, technical norms and standards. However, this standardization has its limits. Focusing on the moments of failure and trial, such as tests, updates or debug of applications, the inquiry highlights the practices of bricolage and detournement, deployed by users in order to overcome the framing by design and participate in the rewriting of the applications.The thesis compares civic applications with the applications developed by public administrations and distinguishes two models of communication called the "long chains" and the "short chains". However, instead of opposing administrative and civic initiatives, the thesis proposes to think from "in-between", analyzing the articulations and arrangements of these socio-technical networks.

Wassily Kandinsky wrote Über das Geistige in der Kunst, in 1912, and was translated from German into English by Michael Sadler. Naming it at first, “The Art of Spiritual Harmony” in 1914 it is known as, Concerning the Spiritual in Art. He wrote color and music theories based on angles, synesthetic experiences, subjective instincts, chromotherapy, and shapes. Kandinsky’s theories are worth continuing to research and bring forth into the new generation of technology where we can see music as numerical expressions. The goal of this iPhone Application is to teach users the relationship between color and music based on Kandinsky’s theories. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection