Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:23:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Renata Massignan Ruiz.pdf: 18666802 bytes, checksum: 1d213c86abe1846abad01cd0baec05e7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-09-10 / Fashion blogs have fundamentally changed the way which readers accessed information. The analysis and monitoring of one of the pioneers in this blogs market is the object of this study, evaluating, in parallel, one hundred and thirty blogs analysing the way which social media behaved during the period between the years 2006 to 2012. This research begins with a case study of the blog Moda Para Usar, through categorization of fashion and beauty blogs based on their editorial guidelines / Os blogs de moda alteraram substancialmente a forma pela qual o leitor acessava a informação. A análise e o acompanhamento de um dos blogs pioneiros neste mercado é o objeto deste estudo, avaliando ainda, paralelamente, cento e trinta blogs a fim de ampliar a maneira pela qual as mídias sociais se comportaram durante o período que compreende os anos de 2006 a 2012. Esta pesquisa inicia com o estudo de caso do blog Moda Para Usar, passando pela categorização dos blogs de moda e beleza com base em suas linhas editoriais

This thesis is an investigation into the aesthetic and political functions of “rumor” in modern Egypt. While previous studies have emphasized the formal or structural features of the genre, I seek to analyze the discursive, political and technological contexts that contribute to its persistence as such a powerful and ambivalent way of imagining speech. The scope of my analysis is a collection of texts culled from the tradition of Arabic letters in Egypt, beginning with early works of historiography (16th century), and into the political journals, newspapers, and novels of the 20th century, as well as the blogs, search engines and internet forums of the 21st century. I argue that specific discourses and imaginings of the rumor – contingent and mutable – emerged as an inseparable feature of the elite author’s textual encounter with the masses. Anxieties over the agency of various mass subjects – the urban crowd, the citizenry, and others – have contributed to the ways in which different writers reify speech. The final chapters of my thesis turn to focus on rumors about the death of President Husni Mubarak, in order to analyze the role the genre plays in contests over national political authority. Here, the rumor is an index of fears, passions, fantasies and other narratives that the writers both draw on and contribute to. Foregrounding these associations becomes a powerful aesthetic and affective process that allows actors to "fix" - solidify and treat - the agency and subjectivity of others. / text

This masters’ thesis is a case study using an antiracist methodology and critical discourse analysis to analyze a popular blog, ‘Stuff White People Like’ and asks the main research question: How is whiteness represented and understood in the satirical blog, ‘Stuff White People Like’? Grounded in theories of representation, discourse, myth and racialization, the thesis looks at two posts, “#1 Coffee” and “#92 Book Deals” and their user comments to investigate the ways whiteness is defined, understood, produced and negotiated. The blog and the comments reveal important discussions of knowledge production strategies of racialization and racism in popular media. Specifically, these negotiations expose three major registers of whiteness that are continually enacted within the discourses of the blog and the comments. These registers encompass understandings of whiteness as biological superiority and heritage; defining whiteness as a performance of privilege; and whiteness as an enactment of dominance and oppression. Sites of antiracist educational pedagogy are also discussed within this study to reveal the importance of investigating everyday discourses and understandings of race for the future.

A common characteristic of the theoretical developments within the field of social media marketing is that activities to which consumers devote themselves in social media settings shift power from firms to consumers. Extant literature has therefore analysed the practices of consumers within social media and their potential implications for marketing. The current state of social media, however, suggests that these settings are undergoing a process of transformation. Although social media were initially characterised as non-commercial in nature, firms have started to manage interactions within these digital landscapes. From initially being characterised by its social base, this development implies that social media have become increasingly commercialised. The aim of this dissertation is to expand the literature on social media by describing the process through which they evolve from their initially social character to a commercial utility. More specifically, it seeks to develop a conceptual framework that captures the role of marketing processes that lead to the commercialisation of these spheres. This is done mainly through a netnographic study of the Swedish fashion blogosphere in order to explain how and why consumers and professionals interact, organise, create and appropriate commercial values in the fashion blogosphere. Drawing on theory of spheres, this dissertation proposes a sphereological understanding of social media that expands the role of marketing. It is suggested that social media may be understood as a collection of micro-spheres that, together, comprise a densely connected foam of spatiality and place. In these spheres, consumers, together with commercial actors, take part in practices that become increasingly commercial. In that sense, marketing takes the roles of navigating social media in search of symbolic meanings of value, and of affecting, negotiating and redefining atmospheres of places in the social media landscape. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense the following paper was unpublished and had the status as follows. Paper 2: Accepted.</p>

This research project explores the use of virtual support groups by women diagnosed with breast cancer in South Africa. Through a content analysis of the online forums and eight in-depth interviews with women of various backgrounds (age, race and socio-economic status) it becomes evident that women use these virtual spaces for information exchange, sense of belonging, search for meaning and most significantly support. Various factors within the illness experience of breast cancer influence the initial use, continuation, breaks and withdrawal from of these online forums. The analysis of online forums is framed around concepts of lay consultation, gender, adaptation theory and social capital to conceptualise and make sense of these virtual interactions. The virtual groups allow women to read and write on breast cancer according to their perceptions and experiences, thereby lessening the dominant medical power to create space for their personal voices. The interactions on the forums foster a sense of empowerment, social support and social engagement critical to their wellbeing and adaptation to the condition. This study also brings attention to the lack of studies about virtual groups within the South African context which is increasingly becoming significant as more and more individuals use virtual groups as part of health lay interaction and consultation.

In 1999 blog hosting services such as Blogger and LiveJournal made hosting, establishing, writing, and producing a blog, short for ...

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri--Rolla, 2007. / Vita. The entire thesis text is included in file. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed December 4, 2007) Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-80).

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

AbstractTitle: The Debate on Google Books: a critical discourse analysis of newspapers and blogs.(Debatten om Google Books. En kritisk diskursanalys av dagspress och bloggar.)Number of pages: 44 (47)Author: Karin EngströmTutor: Martin FredrikssonCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Autumn 2009University: Institution of Informatics and Media, Uppsala UniversityAim: The aim of this study is to survey the debate on Google Books in Swedish newspapers andblogs and to see if the arguments and opinions differ depending on media type and writer.Furthermore, the aim of this study is to put the debate in a bigger perspective, with the copyrightlaw, and the future of copyright law, in focus.Material/Method: 15 articles on Google Books from the two biggest Swedish newspapers, Dagensnyheter and Svenska dagbladet, and blogs discussing the articles were studied. The theoretical andmethodological scope of the study is critical discourse analysis inspired by Norman Fairclough'sthree-dimensional model.Main Results: The results of this study suggest that most authors and IT workers, as well as libraryrepresentatives, were overwhelmingly positive to Google Books, while publishers and somejournalists expressed a more skeptical point of view. The newspapers studied publishedcontributions from all sides – authors, journalists, representatives from publishing houses andlibraries, as well as workers in the IT sector. The arguments of the publishers' representatives wereallowed slightly more space in newspapers, while the blogs analyzed featured debate contributionsfrom authors and journalists. In addition to publishing representatives, also influental in the debatewere those who fall under the category of "academic discourse", such as the Royal Library'sresearch director Pelle Snickars. The arguments of the various media did not differ significantly,but as the majority of blogs were written by professional authors, there was a greater tendencytowards positive views of Google Books. The debate on Google Books in Sweden has also largelybeen about copyright, and many of the debaters are also arguing for a change in copyright thatbetter fits with today's IT society.Keywords: Google Books, Copyright, Newspapers, Blogs, Discourse

Fashion is a site of cultural production where issues of gender, identity and consumerism meet. While the rhetoric of the fashion industry often remains focused on innovation at the expense of women's lived experiences, independent fashion bloggers provide a necessary cultural critique of its practices. However, as the fashion industry pays more attention to bloggers in order to engage their growing readership, bloggers’ oppositional role has become more complicated. To explore the current context of these women’s writing in relation to a powerful economic industry, I analyze the role that ethos plays as a rhetorical concept and analyze how it is used by female bloggers who write about women’s fashion. In light of recent scholarship and of the current media landscape, bloggers’ use of ethos is important to their work even as it is complex and contradictory.