The work in this thesis sets out to explore how students perceive social media use in the context of higher education. More precisely, the focus is on students' use of, experience with, and attitudes toward the integration of social media into their learning environment. To complement this, teachers' incentives for including social media have been studied; to some extent their communication, attitudes, and online activity were also analyzed. The four different studies included in this thesis incorporated three major types of social media technologies: a social networking service (Facebook), a collaborative editable webpage (Wikipedia), and a microblog (Twitter). The studies adopted different approaches to data collection and analysis, including both qualitative and quantitative methods. The specific methods for each study were chosen to accommodate the research questions, for reasons of access to information, and due to ethical considerations. While each study differs in starting point and scope and provide particular contributions to the research area, the main contributions of the work as a whole are connected to findings on attitude changes, the professional role in students' use of social media, their teacher-like actions, confusion regarding moving between the identified roles, and the implementation of social media in higher education. The findings presented here are appropriate for guiding a nuanced discussion regarding the implementation of social media technologies in higher education, an implementation that was found to be contingent on appropriate use and a suitable social context. The findings suggest that the inclusion of social media in non-private contexts generally needs to have a clear aim and strategy for achieving it. The roles defined in this work - in terms of both being a student and the private and professional roles - could also serve as the basis for further exploration in other areas with comparable hierarchies in which it is necessary to understand how the individual relates to self-presentation, technological constraints, and roles, such as the relation between an employer and employee. / Denna avhandling avser att utforska hur studenter upplever användningen av sociala medier i högre utbildning. Närmare bestämt så ligger fokus på studenternas användning, erfarenhet och attityder till sociala medier när dessa integrerats i studenternas lärmiljö. Som komplement har också lärarnas incitament för inkludering av sociala medier belysts, samt i viss utsträckning även deras attityder, användning och kommunikation i respektive socialt medium. Fyra olika studier inkluderas i denna avhandling, och inkorporerar i sin tur tre olika typer av sociala medier: en social nätverkstjänst (Facebook), en publikt redigerbar webbplats (Wikipedia), och en mikroblogg (Twitter). Vidare har studierna använt olika metoder för datainsamling och analys, där både kvalitativa samt kvantitativa metoder finns representerade. Metoderna valdes med hänsyn till forskningsfrågorna, men baserades även på informationstillgång och etiska överväganden. De enskilda studierna hade olika syften och omfattning, och därigenom har de bidragit till specifika forskningsfynd. Huvudbidraget från detta arbete är kopplat till slutsatser kring studenters attitydförändringar, den professionella rollen i studenters användning av sociala medier, deras lärarliknande agerande, förvirring beträffande att röra sig mellan de identifierade rollerna, och implementeringen av sociala medier i högre utbildning. Resultaten utgör en grund för en nyanserad diskussion kring implementeringen av sociala medier i högre utbildning; en implementation som beror på lämpligt användande i lämplig social kontext. En tolkning av detta är att inkluderande av sociala medier i icke-privata kontexter bör ha ett klart mål och en tydlig strategi. Rollerna som definieras i detta arbete - student, privat och professionell - utgör underlag för utforskande inom områden där jämförbara hierarkier finns representerade och där det är nödvändigt att förstå hur individen förhåller sig till självpresentation, tekniska begränsningar och roller. Exempel på ett sådant är relationen mellan arbetsgivare och arbetstagare. / <p>QC 20171211</p>

Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur barn med ett annat modersmål än svenska på ett informellt sätt kan utveckla sin kunskap i svenska språket. Genom att använda sig av digitalt spel som heter Bornholmslek inom fritidshemmets verksamhet. Teorin utgår från ett sociokulturellt perspektiv med Vygotskijs (2001) teori om samspel och lärande. I metoden används både observationer och gruppintervjuer. Dessa har genomförts tillsammans med sex barn som är sex år och är inskrivna på fritidshemmet. Resultatet jag kom fram till i studien var att barnen utvecklade ett samarbete mellan barnen. Resultatet visar också på att det utvecklades ett lärande i svenska språket genom att barnen spelade Bornholmslek.

This thesis is a reaction to the state of utter lawlessness and the abuse of human rights by those in power in Zimbabwe over the past two years and it investigates the possibility of restoring democratic governance in that country by increasing the freedom of expression and media freedom, which is considered to be one of the most valuable elements in advancing democratization. Its aim is to establish the Internet as the best means possible to increasing media freedom and creating new ‘sites of struggle’ for activists in a context where the substantive freedom of expression does not exist. This in turn is shown to advance levels of democracy. To this end, the value of the freedom of expression to media freedom and the value of the latter to increasing levels of democracy is developed and the lack of democracy in Zimbabwe at all levels of society is considered. The Internet is seen to increase the freedoms of speech and association in new and interesting ways and it is discussed in various examples in which it has already been instrumental in evading the censorship of the media and increasing the ability of activists to express themselves freely and to organize more efficiently. Finally, the resources that Internet technology makes available to African journalists and activists are considered along with lessons gleaned from international examples of successful Internet use and it is shown to already be of use to Zimbabwean journalists and activists as they create to new cyberspaces in which they can struggle for positive democratic change in Zimbabwe. The Internet is also shown to have tremendous potential for future use in that country.

In this dissertation I present findings from a qualitative case study of five early adolescents engaged in an online programming community. As a researcher, I was interested in how early adolescents designed digital media as they learned how to code within an online programming community known as Scratch. My research was guided by two questions: (1) What are the literacy practices and processes embedded in the design and collaboration of products created within an online programming community? (2) In what ways do participants make decisions in the design of their projects created in Scratch? The data collected for this descriptive case study included participant created digital media products, interviews, observations, and online community artifacts. Based upon a content analysis of the digital media products and an inductive analysis of the interviews, observations, and community artifacts data, I determined participants demonstrated decisions connected to the design of projects created, decisions focused on the function of projects, and decisions connected with meaning. I created a typography to represent the decisions made by participants as they created projects in Scratch. Additionally, participants expressed a sense of accomplishment and expertise in Scratch product development. Findings from this research provide a nuanced understanding of the literacy practices and processes enacted by early adolescents as they create digital media in an online programming community via the use of coding.

The aim of this interdisciplinary research was to see whether American presidents can reach Millennials more effectively in the digital age while publicly advancing the legislative agenda of their administration. The rationale is that presidents need to gain public support to pressure Congress into passing their legislation; while doing that, they can capture the public’s interest in politics and educate civically the most inattentive audience. To accomplish the task, strategic messaging adequate to digital media is necessary. Millennials appear as having modest interest and knowledge of politics despite their intense presence on digital media. On the other hand, they represent a third of the electorate— also projected to become the most important economic contributors in society — thus constituting an audience that cannot be ignored. Because metaphors are credited with an important role in processing new information and in branding leadership, I propose a category of new metaphors, labeled High Definition (HD) Metaphors that have three characteristics: they concentrate the policy contained in the message, are novel, and are relevant to the targeted audience. The most important claim is that HD metaphors catch the eye of the audience by increasing the message visibility; the corresponding hypothesis is (H1) Presidential messages containing High Definition Metaphors are more salient than their literal counterparts. Second, I argue that HD metaphors facilitate the understanding of the message as they have a contribution to the acquisition of new information; hence the second hypothesis: (H2) Presidential messages containing High Definition Metaphors produce more political knowledge. Last, I claim that metaphors can influence the audience, by producing more agreement with the message; this is reflected in the third hypothesis: (H3) Presidential messages containing High Definition Metaphors are more persuasive than their literal counterparts. To test these claims I conducted an experiment with 251 students in a large American university in the southeast, in which two groups were exposed to written, fictitious metaphorical messages sourced by a fictitious president of the U.S. and two groups received the non metaphorical versions of the messages (literal counterparts). One pair of messages was constructed on a topic of high involvement and the other pair on a topic of low involvement, as determined at a previous date. Statistical analysis indicated that HD Metaphors increase the visibility of the message especially for audiences less interested in the topic. This is a key finding because it suggests that presidents can capture the attention of Millennials who are in general apathetic to the political discourse. On the other hand, HD Metaphors did not produce more political knowledge or more persuasion, in this particular design. The importance of this study is theoretical and practical. It advances a new concept, High Definition Metaphors that was empirically tested with the power of an experiment; future work can build on these findings by detecting other effects. This research also connects theoretical models and concepts from various disciplines, thus enriching the scholarly understanding of issues that are not satisfied within the boundaries of a single field. Most importantly, this research has applicability to practice by informing presidential communication in the digital era; additionally, it can enhance the external strategic communication of leadership in non- governmental and international organizations since HD Metaphors can be adapted to fit any audiences whose attention is desired.

La thèse analyse les modes de production de valeur et les mécanismes du travail dans un milieu particulier, celui de l'escalade, en empruntant les outils conceptuels de recherches menées dans le domaine de la création. En s'appuyant sur de récentes investigations sur le travail créateur réalisées dans les mondes de l'art, de la mode ou de la communication, cette étude appréhende la figure du grimpeur professionnel comme le résultat d'un processus collectif d'élaboration mobilisant différents groupes d'acteurs. En travaillant ensemble, ceuxci vont produire un idéal, celui du « professionnel » qui, grâce au soutien des marques, des entreprises ou des fédérations, voyage à travers le monde afin de réaliser sa passion. Cette enquête ethnographique menée entre 2012 et 2014 aux Etats-Unis et en Europe de l'Ouest avec certains des meilleurs grimpeurs professionnels mondiaux, des photographes, des vidéastes, des journalistes ou encore des membres de l'industrie spécialisée permet d'éclairer la construction de la « professionnalité » et les mécanismes de travail qui lui sont associés. Il est question, d'une part, d'étudier comment et pourquoi des individus travaillent ensemble et, d'autre part, d'analyser l'organisation et la structuration de ce travail créateur. En effet, derrière le sens et les représentations associés à la figure du « grimpeur professionnel » qui se dédie exclusivement à la réalisation d'une activité primaire, l'escalade, le travail de ce dernier repose fondamentalement sur la polyvalence professionnelle. Ainsi, cette étude explore le quotidien de ceux qui ont atteint le sommet de leur art et fait le pari audacieux que l'analyse réalisée contribue à la connaissance du travail créateur tel qu'il est analysé dans d'autres domaines / This research analyzes the production of value and the transformations of work and labor in climbing by drawing on the conceptual tools of recent research in the realm of creation. Building on studies of creative work in the worlds of art, fashion and communication, this research captures the persona of the professional climber as the result of a collective process of elaboration carried out by different groups of actors. By working together, they produce an ideal of the “professional”, who, thanks to the support of brands, companies and sports federations, travels across the world for climbing. An ethnographic research, conducted between 2012 and 2014 in the USA and Western Europe with some of the best professional climbers, photographers, filmmakers, and industry members, sheds light on the crafting of “professionalism” and the related mechanisms of work. The aim of the research, on the one hand, is to study how and why people work together and, on the other hand, to analyze the organization and structure of this creative work. In fact, beyond the meaning and representations associated with the persona of the professional climber whose work revolves exclusively on the primary task of climbing, the work of professional climbers is fundamentally multilayered. Therefore, this research explores the everyday livelihood of the ones who are at the top of their game and contributes to the knowledge of creative work as it has been studied in other areas

An ongoing debate surrounds the question of whether digital media can promote participatory democracy. A qualitative case study was conducted on Barack Obama’s campaign social networking site, my.barackobama.com, in order to investigate the ways in which the website promotes or discourages participatory democracy. For a rich analysis, the case study drew on various relevant theoretical perspectives, including the concepts of participatory democracy and digital democracy. The case study included a content analysis of the website and interviews with members of groups on the site. The study found that my.barackobama.com promoted political knowledge and non-electoral participation, but failed to promote political discussion and community. Consequently, the recommendations highlighted the importance of an online public sphere. The findings of this case study add to the research literature about the political use of digital media, and they also add new information about Barack Obama’s digital media strategies.

Diploma thesis studies the topic of brand loyalty within the digital media and is specifically targeted on FMCG segment. Brand loyalty is defined as a commitment to re-buy a specific product or service in the future, no matter of any external influences. In case of FMCG, there are several influencers of brand loyalty that must be taken care of, e.g. core offering, demographics, elasticity level or share of wallet. The objective of this thesis is to define a digital strategy for a dairy product brand, which aims at increasing its brand loyalty. In order to achieve that, the author has reviewed academic literature on the topic of brand loyalty, as well as on digital media and their influence on loyalty. The digital strategy, defined in the final part of the thesis, is based on the author's research dealing with brand's online performance, analysis of competitive digital activities, analysis of related online content and analysis of Czech digital environment.

Studien undersökte relationen mellan förskolebarns kognitiva förmåga och vilken typ av rörligmedia och mobila spel som barnen ägnade sig åt, samt relationen mellan föräldrarnas användningav mobila enheter och barnens kognitiva förmåga. Kognitiv förmåga undersöktes medtestbatteriet WPPSI-IV och medievariablerna undersöktes med en webbaserad enkät. Sammantaget visade resultaten att det fanns positiva samband mellan pojkars kognitiva förmågoroch att titta på viss typ av rörlig media, medan det för flickor fanns negativa sambandför viss rörlig media respektive spelande på mobila enheter. Gällande förälderns användningav mobila enheter hade flickorna bättre generell kognitiv förmåga och språklig förmåga omföräldern använde sådana i närvaro av barnet. Resultaten gick delvis mot och delvis i linje med tidigare forskning. Eftersom studien fannolika resultat för flickor och pojkar, bör detta undersökas mer noggrant i kommande studierför att bättre kunna uttala sig om relationen mellan digital media och barns kognitiva förmåga.

The aim of this thesis is a monetization of e-commerce project. Using various tools of online marketing avaliable. In particular performance oriented and paid ad formats including emailing, product search engines, search engine advertising, and advanced remarketing strategy. As a proove of success or failure of this intention, project will be evaluated with EBIT and ROI indicators together. An e-commerce project of bad economic condition has been chosen for the experiment, whitch barely covered own operational costs. Many changes were accepted during the experiment. Especially in expenditure structure and media mix used. Many changes in previous ad systems used and more new tools and performance marketing features added. The result is improove in project efficiency. Project becomes economically independent unit.