Title: Political Parties’ in Social Media - A case study of political parties’ crisis management in social media Introduction: The emergence of social media platforms has transformed how organizations communicate with stakeholders. The concept of social media is top of agenda for many business executives today. While some argue social media to provide unique opportunities for organizations, others argue the opposite. The rise of social media enables crises to escalate, implying that organizations need to have well-established crisis management strategies. In the Swedish election of 2014, social media is predicted to have enormous influence on the end result for the political parties. Prior to this thesis, no previous research has looked deeper into the context of crisis management in social media for political parties in Sweden. It is in the political context where this study contributes to the research area. Purpose: The aim of this paper is to investigate political parties’ crisis management in social media, using strategies developed for commercial organizations, and thereby contribute to the research of non-commercial organizations. Methodology: A triangulation method was used of semi structured interviews and archival analysis on four crises of political parties. Eight parties in the Swedish parliament where deliberately selected. However, only four of the parties, Socialdemokraterna (S), Sverigedemokraterna (SD), Vänsterpartiet (V) and Centerpartiet (C), had the possibility to participate in the study. Conclusion: (S), (V) and (C) all used both Facebook and Twitter as a crisis communication channel especially due to its speed and spread. However, (SD) did not use social media as crisis communication channel. The crisis management in social media of each party could improve immensely, however limited resources of employees and finance was found to be the main reasons holding the progress back. Conclusively, dialogue strategies and to some extent response strategies used by commercial organizations are indeed frequently used by political parties as well.

Desde hace algunas décadas, abundan las obras sobre la lengua en los medios de comunicación, pero son escasos los estudios lingüísticos sobre la prensa destinada específicamente a las mujeres. Creemos que la influencia de este género periodístico así como su capacidad para crear opinión y configurar distintos tipos de mujer, bien merecen un análisis en profundidad de los recursos lingüísticos y de las estrategias discursivas predominantes. Nuestro propósito es estudiar las modalidades de la enunciación, pues pensamos que esta categoría lingüística es la que mejor puede dar cuenta de las relaciones que se establecen entre el enunciador y el enunciatario, según la definición que de estos proporcionan Greimas y Courtés (1982: 148). / For some decades, the works about language in the media are plentiful, but they are scarce the linguistic studies on the press dedicated to the women specifically. We believe that the influence of this journalistic gender as well as their capacity to create opinion and to configure different woman roles, well they deserve an analysis in depth of the linguistic resources and of the predominant linguistic strategies. Our purpose is to study the enunciation modalities, because we think that this linguistic category is the one that better can give a bill with the relationships between the speaker and the listener, according to the definition that of these provided y Greimas and Courtés (1982: 148)

Bakgrund: Betydelsen av kundfeedback kan idag inte underskattas. För att undersöka dess inverkan krävs vetskap kring vilka dialogstrategier restauranger implementerar. Information om dess inverkan i den operativa verksamheten samt vetskap om varför restauranger väljer att hantera samt åtgärda kundfeedback. Forskningsfrågor: 1. Vilka strategier använder restauranger för att bemöta kundfeedback mottagen via sociala medier? 2. Varför hanterar samt hur åtgärdar restauranger kundfeedback mottagen via sociala medier? 3. Hur påverkas restaurangers förlängda marknadsmix av kundfeedback på sociala medier? Syfte: Studien ämnar undersöka hur restauranger hanterar kundfeedback via sociala medier samt i vilken utsträckning denna påverkar restaurangers operativa verksamhet. Metod: Kvalitativ ansats, flerfallsstudie, semistrukturerade intervjuer. Slutsats/Bidrag: Betydelsen av kundfeedback samt dess inverkan på restauranger är stor. I vilken utsträckning den påverkar och grad av hänsyn den ges beror på vilken uttalad strategi ett företag implementerar. / Background: The significance of customer feedback cannot be overestimated. To investigate its impact, knowledge is needed about what dialogue strategies restaurants implement. Information about its impact in the operational activities and knowledge of why restaurants choose to manage and resolve customer feedback. Research questions: 1. Which strategies do use restaurants to respond to customer feedback received through social media? 2. Why manage and how do restaurants resolve customer feedback received through social media? 3. How is a restaurant's extended market mix affected by customer feedback on social media? Purpose: The study aims to investigate how restaurants handle customer feedback through social media and to what extent this affects the operational activities of restaurants. Methodology: Qualitative approach, multi case study and semi-structured interviews. Conclusion /Contribution: The importance of customer feedback and its impact on restaurants operational activities are great. The which extent it affects, and the degree of consideration given, depends on the stated strategy a company implements.

Dans une interaction humain-agent, l’engagement de l’utilisateur est un élément essentiel pour atteindre l’objectif de l’interaction. Dans cette thèse, nous étudions comment l’engagement de l’utilisateur pourrait être favorisé par le comportement de l’agent. Nous nous concentrons sur les stratégies de comportement verbal de l’agent qui concernent respectivement la forme, le timing et le contenu de ses énoncés. Nous présentons des études empiriques qui concernent certains aspects du comportement de politesse de l’agent, du comportement d’interruption de l’agent, et les sujets de conversation que l’agent adresse lors de l’interaction. Basé sur les résultats de la dernière étude, nous proposons un Gestionnaire de Sujets axé sur l’engagement (modèle computationnel) qui personnalise les sujets d’une interaction dans des conversations où l’agent donne des informations à un utilisateur humain. Le Modèle de Sélection des Sujets du Gestionnaire de Sujets décide sur quoi l’agent devrait parler et quand. Pour cela, il prend en compte la perception par l’agent de l’utilisateur, qui est dynamiquement mis à jour, ainsi que l’état mental et les préférences de l’agent. Le Modèle de Transition de Sujets du Gestionnaire de Sujet, basé sur une étude empirique, calcule comment l’agent doit présenter les sujets dans l’interaction en cours sans perdre la cohérence de l’interaction. Nous avons implémenté et évalué le Gestionnaire de Sujets dans un agent virtuel conversationnel qui joue le rôle d’un visiteur dans un musée. / In human-agent interaction the engagement of the user is an essential aspect to complete the goal of the interaction. In this thesis we study how the user’s engagement could be favoured by the agent’s behaviour. We thereby focus on the agent’s verbal behaviour considering strategies that regard respectively the form, timing, and content of utterances : We present empirical studies that regard (aspects of) the agent’s politeness behaviour, interruption behaviour, and the topics that the agent addresses in the interaction. Based on the outcomes of the latter study we propose an engagement-driven Topic Manager (computational model) that personalises the topics of an interaction in human-agent information-giving chat. The Topic Selection component of the Topic Manager decides what the agent should talk about and when. For this it takes into account the agent’s dynamically updated perception of the user as well as the agent’s own mental state. The Topic Transition component of the Topic Manager, based upon an empirical study, computes how the agent should introduce the topics in the ongoing interaction without loosing the coherence of the interaction. We implemented and evaluated the Topic Manager in a conversational virtual agent that plays the role of a visitor in amuseum.