Yes / Social media have become an important interaction channel between the government and citizens in the era of the digital community. The adoption of social media in local government services offers a new channel to encourage citizen engagement in the public policy decision-making process. Moreover, communication with citizens through social media exposes large opportunities for the local government to analyse and appreciate the relationships among social media participants in the digital community to enhance public services. The purpose of this study is to understand the local government’s social media network and identify the social role in the local government’s social media network structure. Thus, this study adopted the social network analysis (SNA) approach on the Twitter data of a local government’s official account in the UK as a case study. The study revealed that the internal local government stakeholders play an important social role in the local government’s social media network. The implication of the study was discussed.

With the growing need for a sociological understanding of behavior on social media platforms, there is a desire to know how marginalized groups engage with these technologies. This study asks whether queer people on Twitter utilize the platform to create a counterpublic - a group of strangers linked by a shared oppositional discourse to the dominant public discourse. To answer this, I compare the interaction patterns and thematic content of queer tweets with a previously identified Twitter counterpublic, Black Twitter, and dominant public, liberal and conservative Twitter. To locate queer Twitter content, I developed a process that intakes a starting term speculating where a community may be and finds hashtags used most by accounts that recently tweeted with the starting term. Using the starting term "#lgbtq," I discovered that #gay and #lgbt were the most used during the observation period. I also conducted this process to find the most used hashtags for the liberal Twitter community (#voteblue and #redwave), the conservative Twitter community (#trump and #maga), and the Black Twitter community (#blackpanther and #kyrie). By analyzing levels of engagement using a negative binomial regression, I find that queer tweets are significantly more likely to receive replies than those from the other communities. Using hierarchical cluster analysis and structured topic modeling, I conduct a content analysis that reveals that a large portion (70%) of queer tweets relate to pornographic content. Through posting intimate content, these tweets express oppositional sexualities excluded in dominant publics. I claim that queer people create a counterpublic on Twitter because tweets using queer hashtags show a higher level of commentary-based communication than the other Twitter communities and develop unique thematic content distinct and oppositional to the dominant public. Future research should build upon these findings to discover other avenues of queer online community outside of this narrow band of online communication. / Master of Science / In my thesis, I ask whether queer people on Twitter create an online community. To answer this, I compare how queer people interact and what they discuss with previously identified Twitter communities. To locate queer Twitter content, I developed a process that intakes a starting term to speculate where a community may be and finds hashtags used most by accounts who recently tweeted with the starting term. Using the starting term "#lgbtq" to estimate queer Twitter content, I discovered that #gay and #lgbt were the most used during the observation period. I also conducted this process to find the most used hashtags for the liberal Twitter community (#voteblue and #redwave), the conservative Twitter community (#trump and #maga), and the Black Twitter community (#blackpanther and #kyrie). By analyzing the levels of engagement, I found that queer tweets are more likely to receive replies than those from the other communities. My content analysis revealed that a large portion (70%) of the queer tweets included pornographic content. Through posting intimate content, these tweets express sexualities that dominant communities exclude. I claim that queer people create a community on Twitter because tweets using queer hashtags show a higher level of commentary-based communication than the other Twitter communities and develop unique discussion content. However, my findings are limited to a narrow band of online communication. Future research should build upon my research to discover other avenues of queer online community.

The purpose of this Bachelor thesis was to investigate how communities can be formed online. By applying Randall Collins theory of Interaction Ritual Chains to live chats in the Just Chatting and esport categories on Twitch.tv, we aimed to explore how communities on the website are established through interaction rituals. By identifying and mapping them we hoped to not only find differences between streams and their live chats, but also to find universal rituals that can be applied to chats across Twith.tv as a whole. As our method, we used a digital ethnographic approach, often referred to as netnography, where the data later was processed by using a qualitative data analysis. This study found several interaction rituals in live chats on Twitch.tv, where communities met with mutual focus. Channel specific emotes, jargons and internal references acted as barriers to entry as well as methods of confirming shared moods. The study also found that while esport streams were dominated by expressive rituals, Just-Chatting streams were defined by conversing rituals that invited users to two-way communication.

No description available.

Socialtjänstens arbete med barn och unga går ut på att ge barn och deras familjer stöd och hjälp då det uppstår problematik i deras livssituation. Arbetet ska i så stor utsträckning som möjligt ske på frivillig väg och framför allt sätta barnets bästa i första hand. Trots denna intention om att ge stöd och hjälp åt familjer finns det mycket som tyder på att många föräldrar upplever en rädsla och oro inför kontakt med socialtjänsten. Anonyma diskussionsforum är en plattform där diskussioner om socialtjänsten är ett omdiskuterat ämne. Studiens syfte är därmed att studera diskussioner gällande socialtjänstens arbete med barn och unga på anonyma diskussionsforum, för att undersöka forumanvändares uppfattning av socialtjänsten samt hur föräldraskap diskuteras i förhållande till inblandning av socialtjänsten. Metodvalet för undersökande av diskussionstrådarna är diskursanalys med ett diskurspsykologiskt angreppssätt. Resultatet har analyserats utifrån teoretiska ramverk som socialkonstruktionism, diskurspsykologisk teori samt teori om sociala fält och kapitalformer. Resultatet visar på att den dominanta diskursen gällande socialtjänsten på de anonyma forumen är att socialtjänsten är inkompetent. Vidare visar resultatet att kontakt med socialtjänsten är oförenligt med identiteten “en bra förälder”.

Актуальность диссертационного исследования обусловлена необходимостью выявления мотивационных факторов социальной активности молодого поколения в условиях динамичной цифровизации социокультурного пространства и определения условий ее реализации в рамках различных направлений государственной молодежной политики. Проблема качественного воспроизводства студенческой общности как субъекта реализации миссии университета в сохранении и развитии культуры представляется весьма важной. Объектом является общественная активность студенческой молодежи. Предметом исследования являются механизмы управления общественной активностью студенческой молодежи в цифровом социокультурном пространстве. Целью работы является разработка нового инструмента управления общественной активностью студенческой молодежи в цифровом социокультурном пространстве. Задачи - Проанализировать теоретические подходы к изучению социокультурного пространства молодежи; Определить специфику общественной активности студенческой молодежи; Рассмотреть социальную активность, как объект теоретического изучения; Изучить методологию исследования общественных объединений студенчества; Исследовать эмпирические показатели общественной активности студенчества Среднего Урала в цифровом социокультурном пространстве; Разработать проект агрегированного сервиса молодежной политики. В первой главе проанализированы теоретические подходы к изучению социокультурного пространства студенческой молодежи, социальной активности студенческой молодежи, общественных объединений студенчества. Во второй главе представлены результаты эмпирического исследования цифрового социокультурного пространства студенчества Среднего Урала и его общественной активности, а также определен управленческий потенциал цифровых технологий в реализации молодежной политики. Результатом работы является создание социального проекта агрегированного сервиса молодежной политики. Магистерская диссертация состоит из двух глав, введения, заключения, библиографического списка, шести приложений. / The relevance of the dissertation research is due to the need to identify the motivational factors of social activity of the young generation in the context of the dynamic digitalization of the socio-cultural space and to determine the conditions for its implementation within the framework of various areas of state youth policy. The problem of the qualitative reproduction of the student community as the subject of the implementation of the university's mission in the preservation and development of culture seems to be very important. The object is the social activity of student youth. The subject of the research is the mechanisms for managing the social activity of student youth in the digital socio-cultural space. The aim of the work is to develop a new tool for managing the social activity of student youth in the digital socio-cultural space. Tasks - Analyze theoretical approaches to the study of the sociocultural space of youth; Determine the specifics of the public activity of student youth; Consider social activity as an object of theoretical study; To study the research methodology of student public associations; Explore empirical indicators of public activity of students in the Middle Urals in the digital socio-cultural space; To develop a project of an aggregated youth policy service. The first chapter analyzes theoretical approaches to the study of the socio-cultural space of student youth, social activity of student youth, student public associations. The second chapter presents the results of an empirical study of the digital socio-cultural space of students in the Middle Urals and their social activity, and also identifies the managerial potential of digital technologies in the implementation of youth policy. The result of the work is the creation of a social project for an aggregated youth policy service. Master's dissertation consists of two chapters, introduction, conclusion, bibliography, six appendices.