This qualitative thesis discusses the process of preservation of the community building Källör. In a case study the political processes around the issue of the preservation of the society building is examined on the basis of the concerned laws (PBL & KML), where the protection of cultural-historical buildings is treated in relation to the case of Källör. The voluntary commitment and its significance for the building, is examined through the community center association of Källörs (bygdegårdsförening societetshuset Källörs) work for the building's preservation and goal to run it as a community center (bygdegård). Finally, it is investigated whether and how the place has been important for the involvment of the association. Nine interviews were conducted for the study, six with members of the association and three with professional and responsible persons in the case. Materials in the form of laws, decisions, investigations, brochures and municipal plan overviews were also used for the study. The material was analyzed through the study's theoretical framework; the arm’s length principle (armlängdsprincipen), authority, authenticity, Sense of Place and Genius Loci. The case study shows that the issue of preserving the local cultural heritage is a complex and dynamic process. Those involved can interpret the laws and the cultural-historical value in different ways and the building is not always judged to be objective based on its cultural-historical value. The work of the association has made an impression in the political process and the place has also proven to be important for the associations commitment. The question of the preservation of the local cultural heritage is complex in where laws and collaborations have the potential to be developed, in order to ensure that the local cultural heritage is assessed according to it’s cultural-historical value and thus does not risk being lost. This is a two year master’s thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies.

[pt] Esta pesquisa de tese teve como objetivo explorar a análise de mídias sociais, especialmente as disponíveis em comunidades online de sites de redes sociais, a fim de realizar estudos sociais sobre questões de saúde. Com base em uma abordagem prática foi definido um processo para realizar esses estudos. Este processo contou com ferramentas computacionais adaptados para fornecer apoio em tarefas específicas, tais como recuperação de conteúdo, seleção e análise. Duas ferramentas que se destacam são apresentadas por causa de sua utilidade e a complexidade do processo em que a sua construção se baseou. Para o benefício da análise de comunidades online, o Mapa de Associação de Comunidades é um processo desenvolvido para apoiar especialistas em compreender os interesses dos usuários com base em suas associações dentro de suas comunidades. A outra ferramenta visa auxiliar analistas a selecionar discussões de fóruns online a serem analisados manualmente com técnicas de pesquisa qualitativa, por exemplo, análise de conteúdo e do discurso. Esta ferramenta, TorchSR, foi criada baseada em aprendizado de máquina não supervisionado, usando agrupamento hierárquico, para dar suporte na resolução do problema de seleção de conteúdo. Um estudo de caso exploratório mostra que esta ferramenta ajuda na resolução do problema. O processo proposto foi utilizado em dois estudos sobre questões relevantes de saúde (hepatite C e o abuso de drogas), que resultou em descobertas relevantes sobre saúde pública. Em conclusão, este trabalho apresenta a aplicação prática de ciência social computacional no campo da saúde, através do desenvolvimento de um processo e ferramentas utilizadas para apoiar os analistas e melhorar a sua aplicação. / [en] This research thesis is aiming to exploit valuable social media, especially those available in online communities of social network sites, in order to perform social studies about healthcare issues. Based on a practical approach, a process was defined to conduct such studies. This process relied on tailored computational tools to provide support for specific tasks such as contente retrieval, selection, and analysis. Two tools that stand out are presented because of their utility and the complexity of the process in which their development was based on. The first tool, for the benefit of online community analysis, is the Community Association Map, a process developed to support experts in understanding users’ interests based on their associations within their communities. Our second tool (TorchSR) aims to aid analysts in the selection of discussions from online forums to be manually analyzed by (qualitative) research techniques (e.g. content and discourse analysis). This task, which was defined as solving the content selection problem, was tackled with a tool based on unsupervised machine learning techniques, such as hierarchical clustering. An exploratory study case shows that TorchSR helps analysts in dealing with the problem. The proposed process was employed in two studies about relevant healthcare issues (i.e. hepatitis C and drug abuse) which resulted in interesting findings in the field of public health. In conclusion, this thesis presents a practical application of computational social science to the field of health, through development of a process and tools used to support analysts and improve its application.